It’s taken me a long time to understand how to take responsibility for myself, to be a true man in the true sense. Looking back, I was – choice by choice – numbing, selling out and destroying myself in the process of ‘living’ from boy to ‘man’.
As a boy going into my teens it was all about the constant harassing of girls to get them to kiss us. A gang of twelve year olds would bully the females in our year group to give us attention. The pack, which I was too afraid to stand up to, tormented girls who were attractive and those who were not – the attractive girls were harassed sexually, those less attractive were humiliated, bullied and persecuted because of looks, clothes. These devastating behaviours were considered normal for us as boys: it was just what we did.
DRUNK, DRUGS & DISORDERLY
Mid–teens, it became about getting so drunk at a ‘day party’ while my parents were at work that I vomited all over their bed, whilst the other rooms in the house were filled with school-aged peers getting drunk and disorderly in the name of fun and cool ‘adult behaviour’. This was perfectly acceptable to those on the adult threshold. This is how we grew up. It was ‘normal’.
By my late teens I was subscribing to the lie that drugs were less harmful than alcohol, yet I was using both. I was once taken to hospital because the images that I was seeing, after abusing pints of lager and numerous bongs, were so fear-inducing I could not handle the space I was occupying. Known as ‘a big night’ that went off track, it was perfectly acceptable to my college peers and we all joked and laughed about it for days afterwards until someone else’s night went off track… letting me off the proverbial ‘piss-taking’ hook.
My twenties were all about music and ecstasy: a Class A drug that took you completely away from reality. It was perfectly acceptable to work all week and then go out on the weekend and ‘lose it’ in the name of music and hedonism… everything was accepted as long as the experience was ‘far out, man’.
SELF ANNIHILATING
By my thirties it had shifted again and with more money came ‘seemingly’ more power. Large amounts of cash earned ended up in fine wine, restaurants, the cocaine dealer’s hands and while the scenery had shifted, the activity was the same. In the end I felt trapped. Responsibility was calling and the question was how much longer was I going to avoid it? There was no joy in that struggle, no love, no care for me or for others, just a self-annihilating existence that grew bleaker and bleaker.
How is it possible that the natural, tender, beautiful boy I was born, turned into anything but that?
Screaming at the world through behaviour that was effectively saying: “I do not want any part in feeling this world”, devastated at being told by the world every step of the way: you cannot stay that joyful, loving, deeply caring boy – you have to choose/exist ‘this’ way.
RESPONSIBILITY & TRUE FREEDOM
I discovered there was another, gentler way to be a man, and that I could make lasting changes to my life simply by making different choices. I struggled with self-doubt and it took me a long time to overcome my resistance to making choices that would support (not destroy) me – I could feel this self-worth stuff coming up. Over time, I began taking true responsibility in what I chose for myself through:
- absolutely claiming that the relationship I had with me was loveless,
- making the choice to take care of myself in gentleness,
- knowing that I deserved more, that I deserved love.
Although there were many times when I just wanted someone else to do it for me – someone to pick me up and dust me off when the momentum of my self-harming choices would come crashing in and tear everything apart – I kept taking responsibility.
Now, the old days of living a life that seemed ‘free’ have been well and truly surpassed by a truly free life, where my only responsibility as a man is simply about living lovingly in my day with me.
My relationships feel warmer and more honest: no roles to play, no job to ‘wear’ and no lies to ‘live’ in.
From the choice to BE all of me, without perfection or critique, my way of life has become responsible and this is where freedom truly lies. Now, it is a joy to be me – the true man I am.
By Lee Green, Awesome Man, Perth
Thank you Lee, adding to what you have shared is when we understand responsibility it comes with appreciation, and thus that the appreciativeness is we are more than this vessel and can reconnect to our Souls. Our Soul would have naught to do with anything that would distract us from being in that innate essence we can all equally connect to.
Lee I feel that once we can be honest enough with ourselves and claim that we actually do not love ourselves and have no idea how to be loving with ourselves or others as it’s such an alien concept to us. Then we can start to heal and deal with the self worth issues and all the other issues we bash ourselves up with that our minds feed us as a constant backdrop of negativity. These all come up to be looked at and dealt with and this can be done when we learn how to be gentle with ourselves which builds the foundations to loving ourselves. It is an amazing journey to take and one I highly recommend to anyone who feels there must be more to life than trying to obliterate it.
“My relationships feel warmer and more honest: no roles to play, no job to ‘wear’ and no lies to ‘live’ in” Going through a leadership contest at present here in the UK for the position of Prime minister I would love politicians to want and have relationships that were honest and they had no lies to ‘live’ in”.
The choice to live and be who we truly are is always calling.
We have all seemingly sold out as you say Lee by numbing, selling out and destroying ourselves in the process of ‘living’ from boy to man or from girl to woman the innocence we are born with is crushed. We grow up thinking we are living a ‘free’ life when energetically we are bound and gagged by a force that we cannot see that has us believe that the ‘Free’ life is all there is when actually it is anything but free and we have totally sold out to this unseen energy.
Mary I agree that the energy that we have sold out to is indeed unseen but it is felt, it is felt by us all and although we can say that we can’t feel it, the truth is we can because feeling energy is something that we’re all doing all of the time. So there are choices being made all of the time, it’s just that it doesn’t suit us to admit it, it’s suits us much better to say that we are unaware. And so on we go choosing to align to an energetic source that will not and can not deliver us to truth. And this is fine, it just means that things will continue to intensify , which they will and it’s going to get like a pressure cooker down here on Earth for us all. But we need that, we need things to intensify before we’re prepared to take a look (more than just a peek) at our part in what’s going on.
Alexis I guess what I’m trying to say that if something is frozen there is no way it can feel. As the thaw starts to happen then feeling comes back. That’s what is has felt like from my personal experience. The more I connect to my body the more I can feel. But when I first started going to the workshops and presentations of Universal Medicine I could not feel anything as I was so removed from my body. This made sense to me because years ago the psychiatrist I saw for years told me that it is possible for someone to leave their body if they experience severe trauma when young. I was so used to being out of my body (Numb), I had no idea that was how I was living my life. When the psychiatrist told me this they were not able to support me to re connect it wasn’t until I met Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine that I actually found the support to come back to my body.
When we don’t deal with the root cause as to why we drink and take drugs in the first place we will always look to other vices to hide our hurts.
Absolutely, food became a replacement in many lives and can dull us as much as drugs. And do not forget sugar as it could be placed on the drug list, as it is extremely addictive.
Annoymous, you have hit the nail on the head as they say. I know when I started drinking alcohol it was because I wanted to fit in to a social crowd of work colleagues and to be liked by them. I thought if they liked me, I might be able to like myself. I never thought to ask myself the question why don’t I like myself, it was a forgone conclusion. It has taken years to peel back the reasons for not liking myself, but the journey has been so worth it.
I did so much SELF ANNIHILATING when I was younger, and I can see the same traits in far too many teenagers around me.
This trend and behaviour has to stop it is literally killing us.
Le I agree with you in some ways it is quite despairing to see the teenagers behaving in much the same way as the older generation, where we have normalized drugs and alcohol as a recreational enhancement. We also have all this modern technology at our finger tips, but it means nothing if we cannot support the younger generation to grow up with the self confidence to not want to use drugs or alcohol to dull themselves because they can feel that so much is out of balance with our society.
When we become aware that we deserve more, more love in our life we make a call for it to happen; how it then unfolds is taken one step at a time.
It is very sad and devastating hearing about such loveless and abusive behaviours that occurred for you Lee, and still do today in the name of being identified as part of a gang/group, or having a “fun” night out with the boys, at the expensive of others. How could this possibly be seen as normal and acceptable behaviour?
This article is tragic and sad for what it shows in your life, and even more so for the fact that so many young men today are still growing up in this kind of environment with no one there role-modelling that there is a different way, a way of choice and freedom from the long lasting damaging affects of drug and alcohol abuse.
A slippery slope and where does it end, is what I see with teenage alcohol and drug taking. As you said Lee, it’s all so ‘normal’ everyone is doing it and if you’re not then you have to put up with the backlash of stepping away from the norm. The peer pressure can be very obvious or completely subtle and teens think they are calling the shots, it’s something that they want to do. But, by taking responsibility we see our hand in it all and what we are really getting out of it. Thanks for your absolute honesty and openness. So gorgeous to read of your return.
It is sad to see how through our disconnection to who we naturally are within, our behaviours become more and more wayward, abusive and self-destructive as we enter a vicious cycle which we seek to sustain as it offers us a false sense of identification and a relief from the tension of the truth of the unsettlement we continually feel. We become trapped in living at the mercy of the world around us and for identification and relief, all the while feeling lost. A dismal representation of what ‘normal’ is. You share so beautifully how all this can be turned around and we can live the power of who we are, simply by connecting back to the inner qualities within us, honouring the love we are and being our true selves.
I agree with you Carola, we are constantly in cycles and one of the worst ones in my personal opinion is the vicious cycle we can get into and just go round and round in. But now there is a way to get out of that particular cycle as I have discovered for myself with the support of Universal Medicine.
You describe a veritable prison, one of drugs, alcohol and seduction – how can we ever think that this is normal?
Yes, why is this so common, what are we doing wrong as a society, ‘How is it possible that the natural, tender, beautiful boy I was born, turned into anything but that?’
What is so revealing in these words – “I was – choice by choice ¬– numbing, selling out and destroying myself” – is that whatever the state of our lives, it has been created by our choice, nobody else’s. From this realisation comes that fact we are not the victim of some random event, or because of someone else, it is simply the consequence of the choices we have made; the quality of our lives is undeniably our responsibility
Many people fall for the trappings of so called freedom when we are adolescent and we corrupt this relent-less pursuit of free-dom-ship but we are being dom-inated by an energy that keeps us from reconnecting to our essences. Understanding as one does from that essence. Bring a different quality of energy and Love becomes ones claiming and power-full this is.
And indeed nothing more, as simple as that.
Living life responsible offers us freedom, connection and joy. It also means setting standards that you don’t drop below, because if you do it effects every aspect of your life.
Living life responsibly offers us freedom, connection and joy. It also means setting standards that you don’t drop below, because if you do it effects every aspect of your life.
‘knowing that I deserved more, that I deserved love.’
This is so beautiful! We all deserve true love and no less!
Lee it’s an amazing return you have made to yourself after being in a cycle that took you so far from your natural self. There are currently rumblings in society that all is not well with men, the term toxic masculinity has become popular, and from your story and as a general indication of how men are socialised this term is valid for good reason. We need to stop imposing on each gender and moulding people and instead let the natural essence we are born as be nurtured in its expression throughout life.
A joy to be you. What made us walk away from that? A loveless creation.
We create our own struggle, our own nightmares trying to be something that we are not and to let go of this self-made dilemma we need simply to come back to being our self.
Your raw and honest account of growing up as a young boy to a man is not a one-off story as there are so many men who followed the same disregarding path. In the past I may have been horrified to read it but today I totally understand what happens to young men to propel them into a life of total disregard for themselves and others. And that is simply because as young boys that were told to harden up to be in a world that was not going to support them to retain their tenderness and their sensitivity. What a huge punishment that was for these precious beings, no wonder the frustration of not being who they truly are explodes out of them in all these forms of un-loving behaviours.
We as a society have just about everything upside down, were our standards of what is ‘normal’ is the absolute antithesis of what is truly natural for us, and what is worse is that we champion this and encourage our children to walk this unnatural way so as to not accept the responsibility of what we have left behind and as such avoiding the fact that this is what we live in hurt of. Our behaviours in general reflect that which are abusive, to ourselves and to others, and the only way this can change is to live in connection to love, to that which we naturally are within, and that which is what we all seek to freely live.
The fact that we have arrived at a place in the time where the scenarios you have shared are considered to be normal, is quite shocking and very sad at the same time. To me, the sort of behaviour you describe is simply one long cry for help from young men, and often young women, who do not know who they are, have never been supported to honour themselves and who have very little sense of choice and the subsequent consequences. But as you have discovered there is another way to live, one that is based on love for self and others and self-responsibility.
I was talking with some colleagues the other day and we were discussing how life had changed for us and what we value now was quite different to 10 years earlier. Previously, our lives reflected a recklessness and irresponsibility but now there was a greater settlement and responsibility.
So much of this is through society saying it is normal to act reckless and irresponsible at certain ages and stages of our lives. If we had it that teens and twenties were no different behaviour wise as being of an older age then we wouldn’t need to recover or ‘come back to ourselves’ or find our way.
Many of the behaviours that society deems ‘normal’ are anything but. We humans are a strange species, hell bent on causing damage to our own bodies if it allows us to escape a reality that we ourselves have created. Your experience shows that we can live a life that is true if we choose.
It’s so important for us as Men to reflect and appreciate how far we have come, as you do here Lee. With this foundation of knowing how God has touched our life how can we go back to a mundane view of ourselves and of life? We are multi-dimensional beings of Love first, before any job, title, role or gender.
We all have so many ways to avoid our own love, drugs are just one of many things we use to dull our light so not to shine bright in a world where most others have also dulled theirs.
I agree Ingrid this website Esoteric Women’s Health and the Women in Livingness websites are extremely supportive and it is just wonderful that we can share, open up and express how we are finding it and how it feels living as women and then share the process.
Giving ourselves permission to express what we often feel inside but wait for others to express first is offered on these great websites.
Being really honest as to who we are and what we are choosing can be at times really hard to do. We don’t want to take the responsibility that we totally have the power to make different choices. Lee what a great sharing as to how you found the process and that it is a forever learning and allowing process.
Resisting the love that we are can be very hard on the body and our overall well-being. It puts us in a constant fight against ourself. To liberate ourself from this constant bombardment of self-depreciation and abuse is to eventually accept who we truly are and live in the joy of being a true reflection of this love for all to see.
When we’re in the flow of being disregarding and disrespectful of ourselves it is hard not to see that it does neither work nor serve us or anyone for that matter. To call out the loveless patterns and to be honest to why we are turning to them is a place of returning to who we truly are.
Wow thank you for sharing so graphically about the lack of joy when we are living irresponsibly and the true joy to be found in returning to our gentle selves when we can be released from the many self harming behaviours we have taken on to suppress our ever present ability to feel everything.
I remember those days of being free which meant we could do whatever we wanted, be as careless and loveless as we liked and it didn’t matter. This is not freedom it is imprisoning and it is not true because all we really wanted was to love and be loved yet we were not willing to feel love, nourish and nurture love in ourselves first. The New Age talked about loving yourself but in my experience it was mostly as a concept from the head and the love had emotional undertones, it was not a matter of connecting to our innermost and living from there on a daily basis.
It is actually that simple. It shows us that allowing ourselves to be real and loving is actually way more easy than resisting our natural power to love.
We can redefine these words with such writing…Responsibility here takes on a whole new meaning. Rather than an onerous word that is weighty and full of burden, it is an opportunity of lightening our load and indeed our whole existence.
I love that there is a simple responsibility in taking care of yourself, it’s simple maths – how we take care of ourselves effects everyone around us, it’s part of what we contribute to the world and what kind of world we would like to live in.
Hey and awesome man indeed you are Lee. I love this . . . “My relationships feel warmer and more honest: no roles to play, no job to ‘wear’ and no lies to ‘live’ in.” Wow you are now free to be yourself! This is so worth breaking down our walls of protection for as they never worked as protection only as a prison of our own making.
You are obviously an amazing example Lee to others. We all seem to feel pressured into following the “normal” so called right of passage in our youth but how wonderful to know we can step out of that by loving responsibility to ourselves.
Even those that think they’re breaking away from the norm and living lives that are alternative are still being governed by the same energy that impulses those who are ‘normal’, it’s simply different flavours of the same thing. And that’s the game that that form of energy plays, it misleads us into thinking that our identity is in some ways or many ways different from each other. It tricks us into believing that we are special or not special, confident or not confident, beautiful or not beautiful, basically we succumb to the belief that we are something, anything but something definable by individual descriptions but we’re not, we’re a collective, a collective whole. Which some people refer to as God but the name doesn’t matter, what matters is that we know ourselves to be a togetherness and as opposed to separated individuals.
It is quite a tale, the depths we go to before we find our way back to recognising that all those self-abusive behaviours are not us, they are not solving anything, or making us feel any more settled in our lives or our bodies.
It is fascinating to read such an honest account of the path that you have walked, from one acceptable form of self-destruction to the next, with each step gaining you more and more recognition as well as engaging with even deeper the ever persuasive pull of increasingly sophisticated ‘good-times’ which actually meant that your drugs or alcohol of choice simply became more intense and expensive.
That is a miracle Lee Green. It is so simple as it is in your conclusion – be yourself and be responsible for living lovingly for that amazing life – I’m learning more and more if I want an amazing life then I must give it to myself.
You are a gorgeous man Lee, it is inspiring to meet men who allow their tenderness out and to be expressed with others.
One of the most beautiful gifts we can give to ourselves is the gift of freeing ourselves from those old paradigms that we have taken on from childhood that have defined who we are, and in that freedom feeling who we truly, as Lee so beautifully writes, are.
It is a very typical lifestyle you describe from the past, glossed up with a degree of sophistication that rationalized it all to be ok – even desirable. When we make these choices we can’t be feeling with our hearts and bodies the potential devastation. It is truly worth while considering: what would have us do harmful things to ourselves and others when inside we know this isn’t what feels true or loving?
Beautiful Lee and I appreciate your honesty in that with discovering this gentler way to be a man and change your life by making different choices, there was also a struggle as there was, the momentum of how you’ve lived irresponsible, facing self worth issues, resistance to supportive choices etc. We have to go through this phase and truly claim we deserve love in every way and take responsibility for what has not been true although it is called ‘normal’ in our society so we don’t have to look at how we are living with ourselves and each other in the first place.
Yes, it requires lots of honesty and purpose to change a self-destructive trend like that, but we always deserve it.
When I think back to my teenage years and feel the amount of energy and time spent on getting ‘wasted’ I see how detrimental and irresponsible it was.
We are all in truth super tender and sensitive yet we can find a myriad of ways to disguise this.
The school ground can be a vicious and nasty introduction to set up and reinforce our patterns in life. You gave an ideal example of this Lee with what is considered normal behaviour by boys and the torment that ‘the attractive girls were harassed sexually, those less attractive were humiliated, bullied and persecuted because of looks, clothes’. No wonder as adults we have issues today for these playground incidents if not worked through and let go of shadow our adulthood and continue to play out like malicious game after game after game.
Well said Suse, it is the same pattern of behaviour that is founded in our childhood that perpetuates through our adult and working life. The same pack mentality till one of the pack says no…
And some people wonder why self harming is so high in schools,; how we treat one another, and our self, is not loving for many children, teens or adults.
I love the simplicity you offer here Lee, drop our roles, live more honestly and our relationships will flourish.
We as men grow up slowing destroying, bearing and eradicating everything we were born with. The loving, gentle and caring boy has no place in the world, so we are told and shown by role models we are to strive to become. We never lose that which we are born with; we just forget they are there. When we choose to take them down from the shelf we placed them many years ago; we just need to dust them off and chose to be ourselves again!
May I say Steve that you have done just that dusted off the preciousness that is innate within you and every one of us. You are a beautifully kind and warmhearted man and it is such a pleasure to be in your company.
Thank God you came back Lee, otherwise we’d all be missing out on the gorgeousness that you are and be none the wiser.
You’ve described two very different parallels Lee, and the ‘pros’ of both of these are polar opposites; irresponsibility, comfort but a deep down feeling of something missing, v.s. responsibility, caring about the bigger picture and vitality.
“I discovered there was another, gentler way to be a man, and that I could make lasting changes to my life simply by making different choices.” this sums up life for me today, I was completely confused as to how I was in life, what I was meant to be like and for my entire days I would judge myself based on what others thought of me. In all of that there was no quality or value of me. Because I always denied my choices when things were bad it took a long time to appreciate the turnaround in my life was a result of my choices, this time ones that were loving and not destructive.
” my way of life has become responsibility ” What a statement Lee .
Is it not amazing that after all the wasted living , your present life of love and joy came down to this statement of livingness.
When I was into drugs I used to say that I loved my lifestyle. I look back and wonder what was there to love? Was it
• staying up all night taking copious amounts of drugs unable to have a decent conversation because I was too out of it?
• or maybe it was hooking up with a man I had never met before and not even remembering his name the next day?
• or waking up the next morning feeling like I had been run over by a bus, not remembering any of the evening and unable to get out of bed, that is, if it was my own bed I was in?
• or crashing out on a floor in the middle of a party because I was so out of it.
I could continue with the list but you get the gist of it ….the question is which part of me was saying that I loved the self abuse and total disregard of my self ? Would not have been my body, so this exposes how out of my body I was to continue such abuse.
Recently I was inspired by a dear friend who shared with me her appreciation of how she quickly picked herself up when she was not feeling herself. It stayed with me reminding me that I too can choose to change my movements in any moment taking responsibility for the quality I am expressing in the world.
Thank you for sharing this amazing turnaround in your life with such honesty Lee. It is an inspirational example of how we don’t have to stay stuck in such self-destructive patterns, that there is another way to live and to step on to that path is simply a self-loving choice away. I can really feel your joy of finally being the ‘true man’ that you naturally are.
We think we are free when we rebel from our schooling or parents, yet we are completely controlled by the illusion of freedom when we seek anything other than our true selves. Starting with “absolutely claiming that the relationship I had with me was loveless’ feels essential, as we need to renounce it all to be truly free of it.
Great point – our relationships do get warmer and more real and more honest when we stop trying and pretending and just let people see us in full for who we are, in fact, our whole life is immeasurably better when we stop pretending and get real.
‘Although there were many times when I just wanted someone else to do it for me’ – This is what I had been searching for thinking another person will have the answer to my choices but in all honesty it comes back to that big ‘R’ – responsibility of oneself as no one else is responsible for those choices.
I love the transparency and honesty of this blog, thank you Lee.
It’s not something that is hidden or tucked away anymore, I’ve walked past people getting stoned on the high street or walking through the housing estate. And this is all being considered as completely normal unless we experience otherwise. The more self loving choices I make the more my perception of and relationship with ‘normal’ changes. And it’s not that the self loving choices get harder, when I say more it’s more repetition of the very simple action of stopping to register and act on what I feel from within.
Recently I have been getting out more in my local community and I have been shocked at how many people answer their door stoned or on some sort of other drug. This is clearly a sign that as a society we have a lot to learn. People are hurt and do not know how to deal with that hurt so therefore turn to things they think will help but in the long term make things so much more worse.
Very beautiful to feel you return to your true self and way of being with you in life Lee. Your reflection is much needed in today’s world as the reflections generally available are not getting any healthier. As we were growing up what true reflections did we have to guide and inspire us to be who we are, not said as an excuse, but as a point of reference as to the quality of role models that do have an influence the way we choose to live. I too have experiences much of what you have shared in growing up and getting lost in the illusion that being free was to escape life, yet the escape was never a ‘freedom’ as you can never escape life as we are inescapably a part of it, and the need for ‘more’, the addiction to seek ‘more’ highlights this. Thank you for reflecting that there is another way of living, where true freedom is found through embracing a loving and honouring relationship with ourselves.
I know men and women that used to party with drugs and alcohol and have made the transition into saying no and looking after themselves. I was one of them and it has totally changed my life, the way I can connect to the delicate precious being that I am and have this connection steadily, not in perfection but a good majority of my day. When I drank and took drugs there was no way I had the opportunity to feel any of this within. Maybe a fleeting moment very occasionally. I am forever grateful to have met Serge Benhayon and connected with Universal Medicine.
It says a lot for society when it is considered normal to get wasted on alcohol and drugs, throw up in the street or pass out, and then get carted off to the emergency – and this is just another Friday, Saturday night out on the town. Unfortunately this has become all too common in our cities these days.
There has certainly been a tendency to purposely not want to see that which is going on in the world but no matter how uncomfortable I feel on the inside when facts are presented about how we are coping in life it cannot be avoided. The stories I hear about teenagers are getting more uncomfortable and I often wonder how much worse is it going to get bearing in mind I have 3 children to support and raise but interestingly the stories support and encourage me to be much more aware of the responsibility I have as a parent.
The changes that you have made are enormous Lee and what I like most about this is that you let shine through that it is hard to turn the wheel around when we have lived a life for so long in utter disregard to ourselves and particularly our body, but as you show that it is very much possible and that it just takes a day to day approach and to not give up. Living life loving ourselves, more and more truly loving ourselves, is beyond what anybody else can give to us or we think life could be.
Some years back it was thought that if you were highly educated, and secured yourself a good paying job, then your choices would be more responsible, but clearly that is no longer the case, as no matter what your situation in life drugs have become acceptable across the board, with no discrimination.
Its interesting how so much of what we think is good of us, actually isn’t at all. I know endless parents who exhort their kids to study hard and get good jobs…… and yet so many kids follow this advice and end up miserable and depressed anyway, and turn to drugs etc to provide some excitement in their life. I know when i have let go of ideals and simply done my best to be responsible and make choices that truly enhance my wellbeing and not what i ‘thought’ i needed to be doing.
So many of us have chosen ways to harm ourselves, either with substances or with ways of living that deeply harm our bodies in ways we don’t see immediately. I am glad that , like Lee, I too know a way forward and have set about turning this around in the full realization that we deserve to be cared for deeply.
We too, are so glad that you have re-connected to the real and true you because we now get this gorgeous, tender, amazing man that is a true inspiration for other men to feel and themselves as just as amazing and tender.
Most of us live with so many false ideas about what it is to be a man or a woman. You explain it very well Lee in this blog, it is simply about living true to ourselves. There is nothing complicated in that.
When we are connected to who we are, drugs, alcohol and other addictions will no longer be appealing. We will be able to see very clearly how harmful they are, how they mask and take us away from being connected to ourselves and to people.
So beautiful and inspiring to read, thank you Lee for sharing your journey of coming back to love the true and loving you, a beautiful reflection for men everywhere.
Having an addiction or taking any substance that could harm us is ultimately a cry for help, if we take heed of these cries and listen early enough we can stop something from potentially taking away our whole life.
I agree Samantha, I have seen this in many people I met. It is a desperate cry for help for sure and I have also seen cases were people may not accept or trust the help that may be offered because of the deep hurt they may be feeling and the lack of trust in people they may be holding onto. What I now understand is how we offer help and support to each other is very important, and to constantly ask ourselves the quality of the support we are offering, is it truly supportive and loving?
Growing away from ourselves instead of growing into ourselves doesn’t make any sense when we consider that we are designed to expand and build upon everything we are born with – yet makes perfect sense when we consider the way in which the world is set up, and our investment to keep it going.
What you have described Lee is the normal for most of our world. The gem amongst many that touched me deeply was that you became honest that this was happening in your life and acknowledged that these behaviours were loveless. As with being honest and expressing that, what blinded us has the opportunity to return to clarity.
Thank you for your honesty Lee there are not many that would be so open in expressing how you were with girls during your adolescence and how this was seen as the ‘norm” by you and your peers. What you have expressed here is still happening in schools so it is great that you are exposing this and breaking what is seen as acceptable behaviour. When we are loveless we will treat everyone with the same lovelessness, and you have shown how this can then spiral downwards towards further abusive behaviour.
We have created a strange world where self-annihilation is celebrated like an Olympic medal, a feat of endurance that deserves accolades and beckons to be toppled off the podium by another, more extreme behaviour yet. If it wasn’t deemed so ‘normal’, what would we say if we came as visitors to this world and took an unbiased and fresh look around?
Choosing to treat our bodies with gentleness allows us to feel our true nature of how tender and delicate we are all are and the ways we have fought this by choosing behaviors in contra to which is natural for us all.
Ah Lee – it’s like wherever we go, whatever we do ultimately it all comes back to this simple choice to Love us. And you are so right – no matter how loveless our habits may be, we all are and deserve Love naturally. This blog may be a few years old, but the wisdom you share is ancient.
It is interesting how we can get trapped in a lifestyle that keeps us away from who we know we naturally are. When we let go of the trappings we are free to be who we are.
Lee fantastic to read how you are enjoying your life now drug free, we can waste so much time covering up what is really going on, in fact we can waste life times, but you Lee have dealt with it and are now reaping the benefits for all to see. Thank you for sharing and daring to go where many dare not go.
Drugs are looked at as being a point where you can get some relief and not have to think or deal with what is going on in life. I know I used to take drugs as a way of not wanting to feel what I was desperately trying to avoid. The questions I started asking myself so what am I trying to run away from? With the support of Universal Medicine I was able to start to look at these hurts and issues that I had held onto from such a young age and then the need for drugs or alcohol simple faded away – it made no sense any more and I honestly knew all along that neither of them were good for me.
No matter how we try and dress ourselves the 40-year-old man with anger issues is still the small boy who was never met.
Our issues continue to come around and around until such a point we choose to address them.
And the funny bit is addressing them is super easy, then why do we fight so much?
Is it because we have a pride in who we have transformed ourselves to be and we actually have an investment in how our undealt with issues actually support us to act in a way we think we need to act to survive.
Hearing you describe how you were with women when you were younger was quite confronting to read. I was a woman who was on the receiving end of a lot of the ridiculing and abuse. As I read this it brought up a great hurt in being treated this way by men. Then I got to feel that I also created this- I created my body and held myself in such a way as to be viewed as unattractive- I had taken on all these pictures and measured myself against these so I didn’t value or appreciate myself and this then is what came back to me.
Thank you Lee, for your honesty and exposing the ‘normal’ that is so unnatural to the human body and being. This is a great reminder for me to live in the celebration of not living a life of drugs and partying anymore. That abuse is no longer in my body and everyday should be a celebration.
I love the honesty with which you have shared this journey with us; from the lost boy, to the very lost man, and finally with the choice to take responsibility for your life, returning to the beautiful tender man you had always been, but had buried to fit into what you believed the world expected of you. As you learned, no one can save you, that comes from taking responsibility to save yourself
I’ve had those moments when I have wanted another to pick me up and set me on my way again but waiting around for that has only left me waiting..and waiting…and waiting around. Taking responsibility for my choices and seeing the part I have played in my life has been hugely empowering and healing many aspects of my life. To have the awareness that we do and can have a choice and a say in how our lives are to be lived is a massive gift we can give ourselves and others.
What we often champion as freedom can be our greatest prison. How beautifully simple life can be when we stay true to our origins.
Isn’t it amazing how far we can leave the sensitive tender beings we naturally are. Thank you Lee for sharing how you returned to you, and how we all can when we choose to reconnect to what is true and has always been.
As Lee says, is the acceptance of the responsibility that is innately there for all of us to feel that can be such a defining force in our lives… And which unfortunately, most people seem to shirk
“RESPONSIBILITY & TRUE FREEDOM” We mostly shy away from responsibility, not realising that with more responsibility, we are able to experience true freedom. There are so many ways we avoid, distract, to not feel that true freedom, but when we connect, with our true essence and where we are actually from, the responsibility is effortless.
Thank you Lee for sharing your past with us and the changes you made. From roles, certain behaviors to responsibility of who you are revealed the true man you are instead of the roles you played that”you thought were you”. How beautiful.
Having met you Lee and knowing what a gorgeous tender man you are, I could not relate your past with who you are. It never ceases to amaze me how far away from ourselves we can go. Yet, deep within nothing changes and to step back to ourselves can be quite rapid.
Most of the population could ask themselves this question, ‘How is it possible that the natural, tender, beautiful boy I was born, turned into anything but that?’ Why do we not support our children to remain in their tenderness and delicateness, are we living in this quality of energy and so reflecting this to our children?
‘How is it possible that the natural, tender, beautiful boy I was born, turned into anything but that?’ I can understand why parents must feel so devastated when they see us start to abuse ourselves, for they know us from the get-go, when we were delicate, gorgeous infants, toddlers and young children. Interesting how we too abandon ourselves in the rush to so-called ‘grow up’. Real maturity comes with the acknowledgement of the original – and in truth constant – beauty we are.
‘Responsibility was calling and the question was how much longer was I going to avoid it?’ Hopefully this is a questions those of us who avoid responsibility all end up asking ourselves – I know I did same when I reached age 40. Was I really going to spend the rest of my life living like an (equally irresponsible) 20 year-old, growing older dis-gracefully, partying well into middle age and creating health problems for myself? The answer thankfully was ‘No, thank you’. Finally, I wised up and haven’t looked back. Getting the support to do this was part of the process. A big thank you to Universal Medicine (UM) and my UM-trained practitioners for demonstrating a way to live that was heart-full, do-able and sustainable.
Trying to force ourselves into taking responsibility, to ‘be good’, to improve, etc will never actually work as it merely perpetuates more of the false energies that we have subscribed to. All we need to do is see what is not of us and be recognised as just htat and released – surrendering instead into the truth of who we are.
Taking responsibility is key, I find that it lifts me up and out of the miserable predicaments I often find myself in.
You mentioned that you ‘deserved love’ Lee. This is key for me, to know that Love is at the centre of all our behaviour – either a lack of connection with it or living from this truth. My relationship with Love of myself first is always defining of my behaviour! I love how you have embraced the love that is you. Thank you for sharing so honestly.
“How is it possible that the natural, tender, beautiful boy I was born, turned into anything but that?” Your question is an indictment of society today – for both boys and girls. It seems crackers that we need to ‘learn’ that we can come back to our true and tender selves. How wonderful it will be when we never leave that state – ever.
Lee it sounds like you’ve come full circle, back to being YOU. WE lose our way trying to fit in, then numbing the absolute pain of not being who we are in ways that simply smash our bodies, be it the reckless hedonism or the dutiful responsible hardworking person, until we finally come back home to ourselves – your story is an inspiration.
How many people live this life, work hard party hard or have no work and feel very bleak about the state of the world so use alcohol and drugs. How many young people live exactly the same now to how you were living then? It is great you managed to turn this around and it would be lovely to hear more in depth and practical ways of how you did this or how this happened. Was it an easy change? Were you able to just go from not taking responsibility to taking responsibility for how you were living?
The stench of disregard and the stupor of living what is deemed normal are absolutely frightening as I read between the lines in your honest account of your ‘previous’ life Lee Green. Your resurrection has been a choice and you have responded to the truth that you innately felt. Is it not our purpose in life to share this by the way we live? I can feel you doing exactly that and appreciate that you have shared your experience with the world.
It’s amazing how far we can move away from our true selves through poor choices… never really stopping to realise what we are missing, or how self-harming and irresponsible they are until it all goes a bit pear shaped. It is extraordinary to feel the freedom in choosing responsibly and to watch your life transform through making more loving choices and embracing how they reconnect you back to the self you once lost.
Drama and being picked up by someone else, ‘saved’, is such an addiction in itself that it feeds the need to self sabotage in order to get the fix. It takes time to build a foundation of self love to not need that kick anymore, to see we are far greater than any ‘kick’ we can get from another.
This is powerful for many reasons, thank you for sharing your story, not many of us are willing to go there and expose ourselves, you have done it with grace and strength.
Lee it must have been incredibly painful to live in life that felt so harsh and non-accepting of who you naturally were, that sensitive, sweet little boy you started out as. I’ve seen attitudes in society that drug addicts or drug users are judged as “a certain type of person”, they can be categorised without any understanding. This blog shows that everyone has a story, and from sharing yours more understanding is available to not just understand you, but to understand all who turn to drugs or alcohol abuse.
The problem with the high road is that eventually it has to wind back down to the flats at some point, and if you are used to the exhilaration of the high road as being your norm, that often leaves you unequipped to deal with normal life. A rose appears on the roadside, but you cannot recognise its beauty, because you have lost the simplicity of connection with life’s wonder. Reality is not enough, and fantasy consumes our thoughts. Meanwhile, the rose, wilts, and reforms, time passes and comes around again, waiting to remind us that we are eternally on a road to nowhere. Not because there is no where to go, but because there is no need to go anywhere. We were already complete the day we were born.
Lee, it is no wonder that it took you, and the majority of young men, such a long and arduous “time to understand how to take responsibility for myself, to be a true man in the true sense”, for how were you to know what a true man was when as boys you were not raised to know your natural essence; in fact the culture of raising boys has been to make them tough and macho, with not one ounce of their natural tenderness in sight. How wonderful that you have finally re-discovered the true man you are and now can be a beautiful reflection to men of all ages of how it is possible to live as this “true man”.
Lee this is amazing- it totally points out the importance of being real, loving and tender as men equally as women. As this is our nature. It reflects us that the ways we have shaped up our man .. are out of hand, out of control and the absolute opposite of who they are. As this behaviors has caused us , almost all man, to loose their sensitivity and connection to their tenderness. Which is who they are.. And guess what , we have made it all about .. men should be tough , men should be strong, men should not cry and they should be there solid all the time. All these ideals and images point to us that we have made life not about love – and so everything got filled up with lovelessness hence our men today, but if we look closer – our women are not themselves equally so.. So we must see and change , and come back to our natural way of being – which is in our hearts and shown on this website how to come back to it and life it all of the time. It is our Every Day Livingness.
Wow Lee what an amazing transformation your life has taken through your choice to self-love and take responsibilty. This line of ours really says it all ‘From the choice to BE all of me, without perfection or critique, my way of life has become responsible and this is where freedom truly lies.’ Very true in the past I would never equate the word responsibility with true freedom, but I now know it is an absolute game changer.
‘….where my only responsibility as a man is simply about living lovingly in my day with me’, – beautifully said Lee and so simple really but it is often one of the most difficult choices to commit to until we fully claim the divine being we are.
Great article Lee. How is it that we do not get that we are enough just as we are and truly worth loving? Living can be so simple yet we consistently bring in complication after complication. You are now bringing an amazing reflection for others around you and your blog will heal many others lost in the wake of what is not true. Thank you for sharing.
This is such an inspiring story Lee you have come full circle back to love.
It is really absurd and crazy how many of us in society are self abusing through drink, drugs, alcohol, food and many more things. We use these substances to bury our issues yet they just get bigger and bigger. And the worse thing is society actually encourages and endorses this kind of behaviour. We must start to wake up and see the harm we are doing to ourselves and others, if we are to truly heal.
Moving from self-annihilation to self responsibility and the start of a harmonious life… what a choice to make!
More than a peek into the pressures of growing up as a man here. You highlight the ways in which tenderness is suppressed by men in favour of fitting in or avoiding ridicule and share from experience that it is possible to reconnect to it and live it fully.
Thank you Lee for your honest sharing. It takes a lot of courage and strength in our current world and society to step against the trends of alcohol and drug abuse, and to make choices that actually care for you and your body. In our current world it seems that if we are willing to trash our body and feel terrible, then this is celebrated, whilst if we are not willing to do this and instead choose more caring ways of handling ourselves and those around us, it is seen as not worthy and not wanted (essentially it is rejected). So much peer pressure is around to push people to behaving in a way that does not care for themselves. And hence why I say it takes much courage to say no to such a way of being. It takes a bit to stand up and say ‘hey you know I am worth more than that’.
We enter the world as tender, deeply aware bundles of love and then in various ways lose connection to who we truly are. With the inspiration and teachings of Universal Medicine we can return to a way of living that is a tender, deeply aware bundle of love.
We deserve so much more than the way we treat ourselves and the treatment we allow and when we start to honour ourselves as the divine beings that we are our life truly changes in a magnificent way.
“How is it possible that the natural, tender, beautiful boy I was born, turned into anything but that?”
That is a beautiful question that we do not ask often enough, instead we just accept this as normal or “life”, which is very very sad.
Thanks Lee. It is very healing for all men to read such an honest account. All men are acutely sensitive – some acknowledge, some do their best to ignore it.
Discovering that you are worth it to take care of yourself…This is so simple but incredibly powerful and inspiring from where you were at since your teenage years. It is never to late to start caring and enjoy life in a simple but very very loving way.
Is’t it a shame we have to go on a massive trip all around the houses to get back to a point we should never have left. We are set up for this to happen as before now there have been very few role models out there that know that to be a real man you can show that you are gentle,tender and have a beautiful sensitive side. It is our job now to be those role models and show the world another way.
There is such a wealth of disinformation about what it means to be a man in our society… we need more articles that help us to re-define our awareness, guideposts for men to turn to … this article is such a guide.
Lee absolutely amazing to hear about your transformation, responsibility and true freedom is definitely the way to go.
Dear Lee
It is gorgeous to feel how claimed you are in the transformation you have made, or rather return to your naturally confident, beautiful, tender self.
I feel inspired to show my daughter that there is in fact another way to grow up, simply by the way that I live.
Incredible isn’t it Lee, to discover that freedom truly lies in responsibility?!
I too subscribed to indulgence, hedonism, ‘exploring different drug experiences’ and blissing out. If I am honest, it never really felt true, I always felt like a fish out of water and felt incredible once I did a detox and became light in my body.
I always tried to find the less chemical alternative! We play some curly tricks with ourselves, all to avoid the obvious, that we are in fact confirming the lack of love we are willing to allow for ourselves. Now I have learned that the way that we are when ‘detoxed’ is actually the way our body wants to live: keep it really simple and we have the most energy and capacity to live our lives.
Lee thank you for sharing such an honest and beautiful blog, it was lovely to read how you have turned your life around.
This is such a powerful blog and what stood out for me was no matter what kind of life we forge out for ourselves, we can always come back by changing our choices.
“From the choice to BE all of me, without perfection or critique, my way of life has become responsible and this is where freedom truly lies”- So beautifully expressed and claimed Lee. What an awesome reflection and inspiration for other men and young teenagers/ adults who are caught up with peer pressure or are living with ideals and beliefs that are self harming. You have clearly shown that there is another way- a loving, more responsible way to return to the tenderness, and love that all men are within.
I love These lines 🙂 “My relationships feel warmer and more honest: no roles to play, no job to ‘wear’ and no lies to ‘live’ in.
From the choice to BE all of me, without perfection or critique, my way of life has become responsible and this is where freedom truly lies. Now, it is a joy to be me – the true man I am.”
Thank You Lee for being so honest and sharing Your story with us. So inspiring for sure it is and will be for many lovely men that are on the road back to discover their awsomeness, tenderness and absolute love.
Such an honest sharing, Lee. It shows that whatever we have done in life, wherever we have been, that we always have a choice to come back to what is true and you made this choice which is awesome for you and for all humanity.
Awesome honest sharing Lee of what truly didn’t work and was abusive to your body, to now honouring your body and loving life. You have shown that no matter what happens in your childhood, in early adulthood true change is possible.
Thanks Lee for sharing your personal journey in the last years – very inspiring. I like especially how your relationships have changed “My relationships feel warmer and more honest: no roles to play, no job to ‘wear’ and no lies to ‘live’ in.” What a big difference compared to the years before, where you were more surviving than living. What I realise in my life is, that it is getting less to control life and people, and that is for me a big revelation as well.
It is interesting to read about such a turn around in life and have it come down to simply making different choices. It speaks about the ingrained way we can live and think it is the only way, yet pondering what choices could make a difference is super important – for example that alcohol made me feel horrible and so to not choose it because of that ill feeling – seems totally simple -yet for many, it just wouldn’t be seen as an option.
Your blog very much exposes the harm of ‘normal’ as it stops us from looking at what is truly going on. It is kind of big to see what is really going on and in my experience that may be why there are so many things like the throwing up on your parents bed, are accepted as normal. It would otherwise hurt too much to feel where you were for your parents.
Responsibility is where freedom truly lies. Beautifully said. It may seem that we feel more free when we drink, take drugs or just numb ourselves with things outside of ourselves. But this is no true freedom as we are always depending on something while with true responsibility, we don’t need anything outside of ourselves as we have our own connection which is always there.
Love that phrase, ‘while the scenery had shifted, the activity was the same.’ You capture so brilliantly just how our form of checking-out can change over time, with age and a fatter wallet, but the force behind it still comes from the same original source.
This blog is deeply inspiring for me Lee in recognising similarities with my own past choices and path through life. Thank you for sharing this.
The harassment and bulling at school with other students while I was in school was very similiar, It’s disturbing to see after all these years that it hasn’t changed at all instead only escalating to be a full blown epidemic with some devastating results
Thank you Lea for sharing so honestly your journey from devastation to redeeming the love you are. The word deserve came up for me in your writing, this was a big one for me, coming from a Catholic background where I was considered a sinner, deserve for me meant that I had to do something to deserve love, so good came into my way of living, being so called good, would get me love. To know now that I deserve love, it is who I am and love is where I come from, I can now just be.
Hi Lee ‘Responsibility was calling and the question was how much longer was I going to avoid it?’ This is the question in many peoples lives as we grow up and yet do we listen or ignore? I know it was a complete turn a round for me once I met Serge Benhayon. After that the choice was clear. Time to be responsible. This one decision changed my life for the better and forever more.
It’s amazing what we can consider normal when we see others doing it, regardless of how disrespectful it is to yourself or others. As I think about this the saying would you jump off a cliff if your friend did also comes to mind.
It makes no sense that we would be horrified To see a child drink alcohol and not bat an eyelid when an adult does the same thing. Thank you for sharing your beautiful story Lee – it is astounding to feel how far you have come.
It’s great to re-read your blog Lee. The honesty in your sharing about your transformation back to your inner heart – what was the catalyst for taking responsibility and committing to self love?
It is beautiful to see that in all that we might do to ourselves change is possible very possible
In what kind of world are we living in when we think that alcohol, partying, vomiting, drug abuse, parties and living in complete disregard is seen as normal?
How extraordinary that such a train wreck of a life could be turned around to the point where Lee Green could write such an honest revealing and healing article. How many lives are out there careering into numbing oblivion that could be turned around by such inspiring writing? Countless!
So true, Chris. I am a bit blown away by the amazing changes that Lee has made in his life -from such self destruction to being totally connected to himself and living a life that truly reflects that. Inspirational for everyone.
I agree Chris, the observations and wisdom Lee has learned from and shared about his life is amazing. It also makes me wonder just how many other people are living in that same cycle of numbing oblivion without realising that to be a true man or a true women you don’t actually have to live and be that way.
Lee, there are lots of messages here for all readers. We can easily put off responsibility by going into the complications of self doubt and/or self worth issues etc but at the end of the day, the freedom that is waiting for us if we can bring ourselves to step up is remarkable.
When you spoke about the ‘big night’ that went of track, it’s so sad that we laugh so many really serious things off and how insensitive we can become to our own and other people’s feelings and well-being because we’ve numbed ourselves. It is so encouraging to read that you have turned your life around Lee and that it is possible.
This is written with such loving honesty Lee, thank you for sharing so openly. It’s inspiring to read how you have found a new normal for yourself, one built from love and responsibility which is in total contrast to what we are told is normal and which is fed from outside of ourselves. It’s great to read this expression from your tender heart that holds no judgement of self, very healing.
Thank you Lee, your story is truly inspiring and very beautiful, claiming the joy, of being the love that you are.
Responsibility was a word I had great difficulty accepting, or more to the point implementing the true meaning of through my teens, 20’s, and 30’s. Up until the day I too found the self perpetuating existence of misery I had taken up residence in was really not where I wanted to live. When I began to take a more honest look to discover responsibility was not to take for anyone else by way of meeting expectation, it was and is in fact about me taking it for myself because without it love is absent, and that is something I can no longer live without.
This is very honest and non judgemental sharing of your life. What got me when I was reading this was these were the struggles you had growing up a few years ago; what young people face now is that plus some. Plus social media and the dangers around this, plus the pressure of trying to ‘get’ somewhere in a world that is constantly struggling, plus lack of housing, lack of funding for education, more drugs or hazardous chemicals sold as drugs in the form of legal highs .. the list goes on and on. This (your story) and other peoples need to be shared with everyone to inspire and support others knowing in this chaos there is another way to live and be.
I was speaking to a friend recently about his teenage kids who go partying and drinking most weekends. I challenged him on this and his response was ‘that’s just what teenagers do.’ I have heard this many times from parents and I myself had this attitude when my girls were teenagers. I now realize that this is a cope out, I did not want to take responsibility for the lack of true connection I had with my girls and see that they were deeply distressed and the only way they knew how to deal with their childhood hurts was to right themselves off most weekends.
If we don’t want to see the lack of true connection in ourselves and heal this how on earth are we going to see that in others and help to support them?
Yes, so many things in society are seen as normal, although they are not normal at all. Only because so many people consider something as normal, very often a lot of abusing behaviours are tolerated and we are holding back, without addressing the truth. It is so important to stand up for the truth.
And a natural, tender, beautiful man you are Lee. You are an inspiration to many.
The catalyst and or turning point for me was to start taking loving care of myself (which is an on-going work in process) and feeling that I’m worth taking care of, as men its easy to get lost in roles in which we hide our tenderness and receive recognition and approval from what we do, rather than who we are.
I was deeply touched by your blog Lee, the self created and imposed roles that as men we feel we have to live up to are very damaging to ourselves and our family’s and loved ones. When you said: “the only responsibility is to live lovingly with me in my day”, I felt how that is the most important thing as when I am not treating myself with love and care, I react and hurt others with the same hardness, and protection that I hold myself in.
A man talking of claiming the love he is and the sensitiveness and care that embracing that side of himself brings, that is not something you hear everyday and an amazing reflection for all.
Yes I agree Joshua. A very powerful reflection for all.
It is still too seldom, that we get a true reflection of what we really are – love, stillness, joy. In this regard, an expression like the one from Lee is so needed in this world.
There has been many a time in my life when I have wanted someone to deal with life for me, but I am now realising that by us dealing with things that crop up within our lives and being more honest with the part we play and how we have reacted, goes a long way to becoming a true adult. Getting honest and being responsible for yourself Lee comes across very strongly in your story. Thank you for sharing.
I loved reading of the transformation you have created for yourself through choosing responsibility and simplicity over distraction and numbness. It does take time to push through the resistance to being truly loving and to let go of the self-harming momentum we have created… but well worth the freedom and beauty that comes with such gentle and loving commitment to being who we truly are and not what, who or how we think we are meant to be.
Lee, your blog is very impressive. It is extremely sad that this was the way you and many others grew up and that it was actually seen as ‘normal’. Much appreciation from me to you that you chose to drop the resistance and let yourself be you again.
Gosh Lee, that is a short story with much content! It is great that you have realized and taken the steps towards a truer you – with self-love and care after all you have experienced and lived. Sad reality though is that a lot of boys in our days take the irresponsible part as you did too. So where have we come as society if we still cannot handle this kind of behavior? And as you said it is not about the bad boys doing it – it is about us as society not preventing it by care and understanding for each other.
Thank you Lee, for an honestly sharing of the transformation in your life and yes, it takes honesty to understand and break away from the abusive behaviours we so often live with even if they seem acceptable by society, and choose self responsibility and loving choices as a way forth in life. True inspiration.
Thank you Lee , plain and simple thank you.
It is sad to think we sometimes feel t he need to keep up with our peers and then continue on down the same track till something stops us (if we are lucky). Thank you for sharing your journey with us and the lovely conclusion that you chose Lee.
What a transformation self care offers… This is truly inspirational, thank you for sharing Lee.
Re-reading your blog today Lee, what stood out for me was : ” …my only responsibility as a man is simply about living lovingly in my day with me. My relationships feel warmer and more honest: no roles to play, no job to ‘wear’ and no lies to ‘live’ in.” This goes for every one really and I can also confirm for me that the more I live responsibly and lovingly with me – the more I see this reflected in all my interactions with others. Just beautiful, thank you,
Since I have had first hand experience of how tender and sensitive men can be and I have let go of the expectation for men to be a certain way, I am finding that I look at men differently and can see that the sensitivity hasn’t actually gone anywhere, it’s just hidden and that you don’t have to dig very deep to feel that it’s still there waiting to be re-awakened.
Beautiful comment Julie. It is our responsibility to be aware of any expectations we might carry around for our men, our children, our wives, our friends or our parents ‘to be a certain way’, let them go and find the treasure that is naturally inside all of us.
Thank you Lee, for the very open and honest sharing – what a transformation! It is very inspiring to feel the level of love and care you allow yourself to feel and live with.
as we embrace the responsibility of our actions thoughts and deeds, indeed our very beingness, we can become, or start to become who we truly ,are the men and women of humanity, full of life and grace, returning to what we truly are, together
How wonderful Lee that you choose self responsibility and self loving choices to return to that tender, joyful, playful boy within that was only wanting to be accepted and loved for who you innately are.
Re-reading this today what stands out for me is how common it is for our youth to turn to drugs and alcohol as they begin to interact with the world. And how this commonalty gives way to the excuse or to the belief that it is a ‘normal’ thing to do. That because it is commonly done that it is then considered normal and acceptable. It was the same for me growing up. When in fact it is not normal to go against what is true, to separate from the natural, tender, preciousness that we are in essence and experience as young children. And we need to support our children to develop their natural confidence in holding who they truly are. Thank you for reflecting that there is another way through choosing to be and live all of you. A way that may seem less common for now, but a way that in truth is far more normal, natural, harmonious and empowering. A way where true freedom is lived by how you choose to live every day in honor and celebration of you. And that a life that can truly be lived with joy from which there is no need to escape.
Firstly the photo with this article is just exquisite. I had also subscribed the lie that drugs were less harmful than alcohol, yet I was using both. I cut back on my drinking significantly – but in reflection what fascinated me is that on some level we knew that alcohol was having a negative and harmful effect. It was pretty obvious to see that in the behaviour of my peers. The tragedy is that there really wasn’t anyone around saying hey this is a choice and it is fine to not do this. I did not have a foundation of love in my body that was strong enough to say no. I also didn’t deal with my issues and so substituted alcohol for drugs thinking it was the natural choice. Years of counselling and alternative therapies buried the issues further into my body. It wasn’t until I attended Universal medicine and began to understand energy and self responsibility that the true healing began. Now I don’t need borrowed stimulation from drugs, alcohol, caffeine to distract and numb myself.
Thanks for this blog Lee. I find it inspiring how you were able to come from such depths of self abuse to taking responsibility and finding a much more loving way of life. Nobody forced you to take drugs etc and nobody forced you to change – true responsibility.
Living recklessly and irresponsibly to “living lovingly” as a daily occurrence is a huge process of change that is only just touched on in this blog. However the importance of renouncing the old way of being stands out as an essential part of that process. There is no doubt in my mind, if we have not become honest about where we are and the picture of a man we have fallen for, we cannot become responsible for living our potential as a true man.
It takes a true man to reimprint a life of such an amount of self-abuse and to live it behind. This is all it matters not how long did it take for you to get there.
So True Eduardo it does take a true man to be able to leave behind a life of alcohol and drug abuse and not see one self as a recovering addict which is what most people see themselves as. For you Lee that is like a past life but in this one life. This is something to be deeply appreciated and is an inspiration to us all.
Lee that trace of a man you described drinking and not being tender is not evident in you today. Your transformation is wonderful.
I love reading this blog Lee it really reminds me of my road to Glory. Maybe I’m not quite there yet but man I’ve come a long way and loving it. It’s madness that we have to go so far off the beaten track to get back to something that never actually left us.
“How is it possible that the natural, tender, beautiful boy I was born, turned into anything but that?” A question we don’t even give permission to ask ourselves, yet, a question we all know is worth asking (even in the depths of gross behaviours). I really like the frankness in this blog, thanks Lee.
It was a great statement to make Lee that the way you were behaving was about not wanting to feel or engage with how the world truly was. It is like we create our own white noise to drown things out. The truth is that our sensitivity and tenderness is always there. Yet what we are born into is so confronting and the choice to abandon ourselves and enjoin what is going on, does not even seem like a choice at the time. I appreciate having had enough honesty and integrity around what I was choosing, so when I came across Universal Medicine and the understanding that there is another way to live, I was able to build on those qualities and take some responsibility around letting go of the hurt and returning to absolute tenderness and joy within. It is always there for us to return to even if it means being confronted by the fact that our past choices were actually choices.
Lee this is such a great testament to what can happen and how we can change our lives around when we start to choose self love and self care. It is a joy to read the freedom you know have to just be you, the real gentle tender loving you.
I agree Samantha – I can still remember, where the words self-love and self-care were just words for me, I was not able to live self-love. It is so wonderful to see, when we start to take responsibility in our life, how we blossom more and more. Awesome.
Lee Green you truly are an awesome man, what a refreshing and completely honest post. Your entire life story from its cold ugliness to the warmth of love is just so inspiring, very relatable, and what I really got from this was you claiming it ALL, and not just the positive, your words: “absolutely claiming that the relationship I had with me was loveless, making the choice to take care of myself in gentleness, knowing that I deserved more, that I deserved love”. You show us that when we choose nothing but love, there is everything (and more) to deserve.
Wonderful to read such an open and honest story of coming back to “the natural, tender, beautiful boy I was born,” Thank you Lee.
Thank you so much Lee Green. It was absolutely mind blowing reading you open & honest article. It deeply touched me how you so openly expose behaviours of which is almost seen as ‘normal’ nowdays. It is so good to have some one , who had lived in this way, speak about it and telling us that this is not ok at all. I love how you at the same time express your feelings. It is absolutely asthonishing to see how you have chosen to take responsibility, even coming from a life with so much abuse. That is incredible. Good to have you on board and to hear you talking about who you are – a true man with joy & responsibility.
So good to hear that now you feel truly “free” rather than what you thought was freedom before, it seems so much grander now to be living a life of responsibility and acknowledging your feelings and addressing all of what happened in between childhood and adulthood. What actually went wrong? How did it get so horrendous? I ask myself that all of the time, how did it get like this? It really makes me consider what has happened and what I have chosen to live like.
Hello Lee, after reading your story I was wondering where you were going to end up in your 40’s. It seemed each decade of your life had a different flavour but seemingly the same end. The things we do to avoid our natural state of being can dumbfound you and as you say that can be extreme. True freedom comes with self responsibility and we can pretend all we like that we are ‘free’ but it seems from how you have described it that this is far from the truth.
This part has it all, “Now, the old days of living a life that seemed ‘free’ have been well and truly surpassed by a truly free life, where my only responsibility as a man is simply about living lovingly in my day with me.” Men like you are leading the way, thanks Lee.
True freedom in life comes from taking our responsibility to live our lives based on love and and nothing else. To accept that we are the Sons of God and that everything is energy and because of energy. This way of living brings us the freedom and joy in experiencing life as it unfolds to us and to find out where our life in truth is about.
Amazing transformation Lee, your inspiring blog shows that there is another way to live. We can choose at any time to change what isn’t loving or supportive. A very honest and powerful blog thank you.
I really connected with how life must be so more truthful and loving as you say, “My relationships feel warmer and more honest: no roles to play, no job to ‘wear’ and no lies to ‘live’ in.” It is like being freed from a prison of your own making. It is a joy to read of this break for freedom and the celebration of yourself as the man you feel yourself to be. Thank you.
Lee this is a beautiful transformation, thank you for sharing your true self to the world. I am interested to know how you made the step back to responsibility, and back to being who you are?
“Now, the old days of living a life that seemed ‘free’ have been well and truly surpassed by a truly free life, where my only responsibility as a man is simply about living lovingly in my day with me.” So great that you kept choosing to take responsibility and live more lovingly with yourself Lee. And a great reminder for me, thank you.
What got me about this one Lee is the part that said ‘there was no joy in that struggle, no love’ I bet so many people feel the same thing, yet how their lifestyle is is the normal and so they have no where to go cause they thinks that that’s it.
Very true Emily, I can imagine it would be almost impossible when we have not been shown that there is another. The illusion that it is normal to suffer and abuse our body is definitely very harming. What has been classified as normal is in fact not normal at all. To live in joy and love consistently is the true normal.
Very true Emily, to stop and consider how our lifestyles may not support a joyous and harmonious of being would mean we also need to also consider that we have created the struggle in life that we experience.
Wow, Lee – I am sure many other men can relate to your honest blog, about peer pressure and needing to fit in as a “man” growing up, and not wanting to commit to life .
I love how you transformed your self abusive behaviour to committing to life with self appreciation, self love and self responsibility.-_ “From the choice to BE all of me, without perfection or critique, my way of life has become responsible and this is where freedom truly lies. Now, it is a joy to be me – the true man I am.”
Lee, you have written your blog in a very relatable way. I was particularly struck by the sense of you really claiming what you have written with your words ‘Now, it is a joy to be me – the true man I am.’ Beautiful!
What strikes me is the first paragraph of your blog Lee Green, where you describe how you and your gang of twelve year olds bullied the females of your year group while you where too afraid to stand up to the group.
From this I get the understanding that you already felt at this stage that this way of treating each other is not ok and that you have later on found ways to cope with this inner struggle, ways that are commonly accepted as being normal in our nowadays society.
How important is it that we show the world that we need to have decent human relations and that this will resolve many of the currently abusive ways of living that all have been developed in our societies in order to cope with the atrocities that are out there.
So true Nico and Lee, this way of bullying and treating each other is a distorted way of protecting ourselves from the natural tenderness we are being attacked.
Thank you Lee for sharing your blog , what an inspiration you are to all men , knowing you have been through the mill thinking it was a type of freedom not to comply with the mundane and yet here you are bright as a beacon shining truth with every day you live in your work place and home knowing you have found a way of living that leads to true freedom , living the love we all are..
“My only responsibility as a man is simply about living lovingly in my day with me.” I love this Lee. Amazing how lost we can get in doing, drugs and activities that hurt and harm. But equally its amazing how beautifully and powerfully we are able to return to our natural state when we take responsibility, and make love our way.
This is great Lee. Isn’t it ridiculous, the extreme self-abusive behaviours we take on to fit in to what we thought of as normal. It is wonderful that you have let go of those behaviours and chosen to connect back to the young sweet boy that were, to now being a truly tender, gentle man and the joy you feel of being the true you – your normal self.
Very well said Deidre, very beautiful and I too love reading the part where Lee took responsibility and returned to his tender, joyful, loving and amazing self. Truly inspiring.
Lee the term that I want to use to describe how I felt when I read your article is ‘heart warming’ but I feel to also say that that term can be brushed off as it is often used flippantly. I am saying that I actually felt a warmth spreading through my heart when I read your article. Thank you.
This is a great example of the struggle we go through from boy to man, why does it have to be this way and where is the true love and support? My story is similar Lee and unfortunately I couldn’t be told anything and thought I knew everything and what I was doing was cool. Its good to come out the other side, but just a shame we have to go through all that in the first place.
The beautiful tender boy, the lost adolescent and young man. Now realising again the tenderness and beauty you truly are Lee, this is true responsibility but it is more than that. Coming back to you, who you can now embrace and love, is showing the world what is possible.
This is a truly inspirational blog. It is definitely showing the world that when we embrace love, anything is possible.
Beautifully written Lee. You write “in the end I felt trapped,responsibilty was calling”. I have always felt the pull of responsibility, even in the numbness and disconnection of my life in its many different scenarios. To be finally honest enough with my self to accept the responsibility and acknowledge that I do have a choice gives me a freedom that I thought I would never have. My choice, my responsibility. Today those same choices are there for me to make but I am making them from a different way of living.
Lee, the beautiful honesty in which you’ve shared your staggered journey from boy to man and the responsibility you’ve since taken to turn things around hold an immense power in showing all men that our return to the beautiful gentle and tender boy we once were is indeed possible whilst still being all that a man needs to be in the world and so much more – A True Man simply living True Freedom.
I can relate well to that pain – emotional pain of feeling life as a very sensitive young man – so many wrongs and absolutely no support or clue how to change things. In this context, being ‘out of it’ seems a very sensible thing to do!
Yet the greater pain of disconnecting from my inner knowing of how to hold a loving way of being, which I now feel is timeless, was never really numbed by drugs -only temporarily. The choose to turn that pain into guidance, is the choice to be celebrated.
Thank you Lee. Something that really stood out to me is that responsibility is something that so many try to avoid at all costs – seeing it as a burden, restricting or even ‘boring’… However, as you have so clearly shared, our sole responsibility is to be who we truly are – and only then are we free from the imprisonment of a life that is miserable when void of the true tenderness and fullness of ourselves.
A beautiful story Lee of the unfolding back to who you truly are and actually always were. That beautiful and tender boy that you were never went away instead he was just buried beneath all the unloving behaviours. As you chose to make self loving choices, that beautiful and tender boy re-emerged.
So well said. It feels like Lee has presented us with a true miracle of how one man can completely turn his life around and that we all can make that same choice
I agree Mick and Penny. It shows how powerful our choices are and how we all can return to that beautiful innocence we were born with.
Well said Mick, this is a great reflection of what is possible and Lee is certainly leading the way for many men to do the same.
Awesome blog Lee. I loved reading your discovery from self abuse to self love and self responsibility. It is true that we often convince ourselves that what we are doing although we know is harming us is ok because it seems ‘normal’ but in fact it is far from it. We see what others are doing to themselves and sometimes feel to join in for different reasons but ultimately we know deep down what is harmful and what is not. By being honest and committing to choosing more loving choices we can arrest all the harmful habits we have pick up along the way. I love your reminder that no matter how far we go off track, we can always choose to return to who we truly are by choice.
You’re a walking wonder of God, Dear Lee.
It’s so lovely to have this sharing from you Lee. Cleary highlighting how your life was, to how it is now, a huge contrast and a great inspiration. Thank you.
Simply beautiful Lee Green, Awesome Man 🙂
Lee you have so clearly explained the trap of feeling that life does not make sense, and so choosing to escape into something that feels like it is a form of freedom from the mundane existence, but is actually still a prison, just with perhaps slightly more colourful walls. And the only way to be truly free is to take full responsibility for the life we have created for ourselves and committing to honouring what we are really feeling inside.
To feel who a man truly can be, and to say that sentence, is so empowering, and it is something which should be nurtured and loved by everyone. I, myself, feel the beauty of all the men that we can be, but sometimes choose to not claim
It is interesting Lee how you mentioned that the set up happens early in life and although the scenery seems different as we grow up the behaviour is still the same. Beautiful how you show that we can all make different choices and as a result come back to the gentle being we were born to be.
Thank you Lee for sharing your journey back to you and the tenderness that you are.
Dear Lee, I absolutely love this blog, and this line, “it is so simple,” that is what stands out for me, we often think we have to make huge changes or that ‘how can I change, it is too much, too hard’, but you have shown us there is another way – “I could make lasting changes to my life simply by making different choices”. And these choices don’t have to be big, they can be the littlest of things like saying no to a self destructive thought, or a drink, food etc you know doesn’t feel great in your body. There is one more line I really love, “making the choice to take care of myself in gentleness,” – this just feels so honouring and lovely.
You know what got me about this blog Lee ? The by-line… Lee Green, Awesome man. haha love it. It was sad to read about the boys going into teens and how they would harass girls. But you’ve recounted something that is probably very common for most people- a life full with abuse yet no one recognizing that it is abuse as its just something you do.
You have summed this blog up beautifully here Lee – “Now, the old days of living a life that seemed ‘free’ have been well and truly surpassed by a truly free life, where my only responsibility as a man is simply about living lovingly in my day with me”. This is the only responsibility we need and everything else flows from there.
Wow. Lee. Welcome back to the world.
Lee, who would have thought during those early heady days you describe, that it was responsibility that would bring freedom to be YOU. A very honest and revealing story. Thank you.
This is gorgeous Lee. Living a life of self-responsibility = living a life of love. It doesn’t need to be burdensome, but allows freedom.
‘Although there were many times when I just wanted someone else to do it for me – someone to pick me up and dust me off when the momentum of my self-harming choices would come crashing in and tear everything apart – I kept taking responsibility.’
I can certainly relate to this, Lee. I too have been taking more responsibility for my life over the past few years, and I continue to do so – although there are and have been times when all I wanted to do was to revert to the old, neglecting-of-responsibility way in which I used to see and live my life.
But, and through constant and ever-growing commitment, I can truly say that the choices to truly take responsibility for me, my life, and all that seemingly happens ‘to me’, has been a great source of joy and love in my life. From my experience, this way of living – the way of Responsibility – is by far the greater lifestyle choice.
Awesome man for sure, Lee. Much appreciation for your very truthful exposing look at growing up to be a man the old way, and the new loving way. Precious.
I see many small children in my life, as I am a mother of young ones, “How is it possible that the natural, tender, beautiful boy I was born, turned into anything but that?” I see it from an early age, I am talking baby age. The opinions and emotions that are piled on to kids as to what they should or should not be doing or being can be a huge pressure. Parents and adults around kids have a huge opportunity to shift habits and patterns that are rife in society that hold back both boys and girls. Imagine the notion that we all come ready to go, we have an innate gentle, tender, love ready to express and this requires supporting. There is nothing to mould, train or impose, allow a child to express themselves and they will grow to be themselves not a crushed, distorted and hurt adult. I have been through it myself, I have been that child and I am now choosing to learn to be an adult and parent that connects with the ‘natural, tender, beautiful’ girl/woman who was there all long, one amazing thing is it is never too late. Great to read your experiences of growing up as a boy and into a man, it is wonderful to share this with the world – Thank you.
What I take from this Lee is that responsibility is not boring! For me, responsibility it is the absence of being controlled by what the world wants to make of us or from us; rather it is having a choice in how to live and how to be. I like being responsible, there’s a real joy in feeling free to make choices for myself and a freedom to make choices that will support me; not go along with whatever seems to be normal at the time for everyone else.
I am so appreciating your sharing here Lee, on a subject so totally needed to open up about so thank-you for starting that conversation. And Suzanne, I also love your sharing around responsibility, as I feel the same way. Before I chose to become more responsible, I was constantly feeling unsure and at times quite disempowered, but when you choose to be more responsible, there is as you say, a real joy and a feeling of freedom which totally supports you. So lovely.
I wondering how many young men would feel the pull, away from their natural tenderness and beauty? Would it be all? And how many would actually chose to reconnect back? After reading your blog Lee it has really made me understand young men more and I am starting to see what can actually be going on for them during their teenage years.
What you have written here Lee is so honest and truly inspirational.
The transformation, returning back to yourself, is amazing and a great credit to your commitment to life
I love reading and rereading about your life.
I fully appreciate and love the man your are today, the real and true Lee.
Beautiful Lee, I can feel the joy you have in the way you live your life now and how your responsibility actually supports you to be more yourself – and not just for yourself but for all those around you. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you Lee for sharing the long winding path back to being the gorgeous man I know you must be. It is such a privilege when someone shares so honestly about where they have been and that they have now arrived at a point where the path may be long but it is now trodden with a sense of purpose and dedication.
Wow, if honesty is a foundation for re-connecting with oneself ( and it is) then this blog raises the bar. Exposing all the so-called normal social practices for the awfulness that they are, has to be done with such consistency that they no longer become normal, and in the vacuum that will be there, will arise the thirst in humanity for what is true.
What’s awesome about reading about transformations like yours Lee, is that it proves just how possible it is to come back to yourself if you want to. Very cool, thanks so much for sharing!
Thank you Lee for sharing this awesome, honest piece….and sharing from the the man you have become today, the man that is who you truly are, caring, loving, gentle and responsible….there is so much pressure on men to be men, whatever that means, and men it seems are not really allowing to be these qualities which are naturally within them… as they are not supported to be so….many live so far from them because of the pressures of life, and then put on themselves…..
Such a beautiful sharing Lee – I can feel how in your journey the amazing changes that you have made and feeling now the gentle, tender, loving man that you truly are and your words “My way of life has become responsible” So awesome when we allow ourselves the “green light” to realise that.
thank you.
Like yourself Lee I looked for so called freedom everywhere outside of myself, causing much stress and disharmony in my life and my body, only to find that looking within held the answers and the freedom I had so desperately been seeking.
I love this Lee and you are indeed a true man. As much as it has been healing for you to step into who you naturally are a man, it has been healing for me as women to be with true gentlemen. Thank you for sharing you.
Lee with the teenagers, is it a kind of bullying of boys by boys who have shut down their tenderness because this was not valued, and then the anger is directed towards the girls, as Thomas explained? Then as the boys grow older it seems that the pattern of self abuse is progressively maintained to confirm the self loathing. What courage you have to choose a more loving way to live with yourself and others. While I didn’t experience bullying from boys, there has still been an amazing path of self awareness to walk upon, letting go of old damaging beliefs and patterns. Thank you for your blog. Serge Benhayon and the Universal Medicine practitioners have led the way back to responsibility and true freedom, choosing the energy we want to be – love!
Awesome Lee – I love how you describe your choice to keep taking responsibility even when things felt to be crashing down around you. Very inspirational.
So true Amelia, we need more people in this world who inspire others to take responsibility even when things feel like they are crashing down around you.
So honest. So beautiful. So inspiring. A big heart-felt thank you Lee for exposing the lies we have accepted.
What a lie we have all been sold that irresponsibility is freedom. It is the ultimate imprisonment.
Awesome man Lee thank you so much for so openly share about a real mans live!!!! Me as a woman I always want to understand more about it and now I got a beautiful insight. It is simply awesome how you describe your change and wunderbar comprehensible. It is a real joy to read and feel you in every aspect you are and I like to celebrate you not in the way you did it in your old days but more like you are today – you are a powerful and tender man – a great role model that is very much needed in this mans world!!!!
A lovely blog Awesome man. I love that you have returned to that lovely innocence that is truly you and your honesty in how you were a ‘normal accepted’ teenager and man, and that now you no longer accept the ‘norm’ as real . Awesome.
You truly are an awesome man Lee Green. So awesome to hold yourself with such love and to look back and see so clearly what was not truly you – with no judgement – and to step so awesomely into how you are now. Inspirational!
Lee, what a journey! Your dedication and commitment to keep searching until you found a richer and more rewarding life is a great inspiration to me, as is the message that the true secret lies within us and isn’t something found ‘out there’. Thank you.
I loved reading your blog and I love meeting and connecting with the absolutely beautiful man that you are.
“How is it possible that the natural, tender, beautiful boy I was born, turned into anything but that”. These words really resonated with me Lee.
In the past you were anything but, however, due to your dedication and commitment to healing yourself, today you are natural, tender, beautiful and loving man
This is so simple and beautiful to read Lee, ‘where my only responsibility as a man is simply about living lovingly in my day with me.’
I loved reading every part of this blog. Particularly this part at the end as you have mentioned in your comment Rebecca, I agree is so simple and beautiful. It shows that when we make a choice to live lovingly everyday it feels true and our body will reflect that.
What an Inspirational transformation. Very empowering.
Thanks Lee, glad you’re back to being the tender gentle man you were born to be. The world is a better place for you being you.
Lee, your article is inspiring, honest and all-encompassing. Doesn’t matter what gender we are, it is all about realising that true freedom and real life is coming from inside and we need to commit to ourselves and to life as well as take full responsibility for our choices.
It feels important to share our experiences to show that we can turn life around and return to love. Thank you.
Great blog Lee thank you for your honesty and I like as you say “no roles to play, no job to win, no lies to live in”
Lee this is a phenomenal change! so many years of drugs… it would have been so normal to you. I know how strong addictions can be and for you to now not be addicted to all the drugs, alcohol, parties and to actually live a full life of love and responsibility, that is extraordinary!
All time fave line: ‘knowing that I deserved more, that I deserved love.’
Thanks for the Healing
What I love about this blog is that it isn’t gender specific. This journey could very easily be a women’s journey back to the tenderness and gentleness she is and very closely resembles my own journey back to myself following years of alcohol abuse used to check out from the world. Thank you for sharing your story and for showing us all that there is another more truthful way to live that is freeing and beautiful.
Lee, what I love about your blog and others that tell a similar story is, no matter how off track you went, no matter how much you abused yourself through drugs, alcohol and destructive behaviour, your tenderness and sensitivity never went anywhere, it was all still held deep within you. So when you made the choice to return to your natural tenderness and sensitivity it was simply a series of choices and allowing yourself to accept more deeply, at each step, the gorgeousness that lives inside your heart. This is so very inspiring for all who have gone wayward (myself included), as knowing there is always a soft place to land when we cannot deny the pull back to who we really are inside, is enormous.
I really get this quote “Now, the old days of living a life that seemed ‘free’ have been well and truly surpassed by a truly free life…” I used to think being spontaneous and a little bit wild was free, however ping ponging around and not really knowing what was going on or why I was doing certain things was not ‘free’ I was at the whim of my next urge or need. I know understand and I am beginning to appreciate true freedom, and it has a lot to do with not being beholden to my vices and certain foods, alcohol and cigarettes that used to control me to a degree. I see them for what they are and I get to choose what I put in my body. This also works with how I feel emotionally, I am recognising that I can choose how I respond to situations and how I deal with it, do I react or do I observe?
Wow Lee a powerful blog indeed. I love this truth you have shared ‘Now, the old days of living a life that seemed ‘free’ have been well and truly surpassed by a truly free life, where my only responsibility as a man is simply about living lovingly in my day with me.’ As I too lived with the idyllic belief that escaping from the pain I was existing with, through drugs and alcohol, was ‘freedom’. When I realised that it was driving me further away from the true freedom that came when I chose to feel the truth and take responsibility, I then become the woman I was born to live.
Just sharing this alone is refreshing to feel, let alone the tenderness that is this blog. We need more sharing like this, opening up our men to the tenderness they truly are and making such expression normal once again.
This brought tears to my eyes, not only because it is a similar story to my own, but because I know how common it is. And sad because that is normal and so far from how we were as children and so far from who we truly are. For the vast majority of the world, the notion of a “relationship with self”, is not even in their vocabulary or mindset. The mention of it would cause blank faces. have only just started my relationship with myself, and I feel as one does after having had a few good dates. I’m excited!
What is it that we have conveniently forgotten that was around when the term ‘gentleman’ = ‘gentle man’ was coined?
Lee what you have honestly shared about your experiences brought tears to my eyes, I especailly loved ” How is it possible that the natural, tender, beautiful boy I was born, turned into anything but that?” as a mother of 5 gorgeous men from 16 to 31 years, I can feel how the demands on men to be everything that they are not deeply affects them. Thank you for showing that there is another way and you are living prove of this!
The line that jumped out for me in the very honest sharing of your story Lee, was “These devastating behaviours were considered normal for us as boys: it was just what we did.” It saddens me to see what we as a society have accepted as being normal; behaviours like these are not only harmful and destructive to those who are being targeted, but also to the perpetrators. I know that with the wisdom that you have acquired during this time of unfolding back to the naturally tender man you are, will be shared with many other men, both young and old, who are still stuck in these patterns, not understanding that it is not normal, but not yet knowing that there is another way.
Hi Lee, Reading the blog this morning and what stood our for me was your choice ‘I just kept taking responsibility’ this felt like such a significant moment since without taking responsibility we can’t truly change anything. Love the blog.
Lee what a great insight into responsibility… I loved the words “Responsibility was calling… how much longer was I going to avoid it. This rings true to me as this is what stops us living our full potential and the tender people we truly are. Thank you for inspiring me once again.
I loved your honesty in this blog Lee, and even though I didn’t have some of the same experiences you did, I can really relate to my life changing when I started taking responsibility. Thanks for sharing the changes that are possible when we do this, not only for ourselves but within all of our relationships.
Isn’t it strange how we take drugs to feel free and to feel good when in reality, the complete opposite is actually the case – we feel awful and we feel trapped. That was my experience. Like you Lee, I too, was engaged in behaviours that screamed: “I do not want any part in feeling this world”. Funny thing was, once I made the choice to ‘turn the volume down’ and allowed myself to FEEL, the freer and more joyous I felt. This was a ‘buzz’ like none I had ever experienced and I now wouldn’t trade one drop of my awareness for one speck of the latest designer drug. There is no substitute for love.
Well, I loved this blog Lee and was sure I would comment something to it….but then I saw how you sign your writing: “Lee Green, Awesome Man, Perth” – that brought a big big smile into my face and tears into my eyes. YES, that is what you are: an awesome man. And that is what I am: an awesome woman. While I say this and write it down I feel how my body is re-adjusting my posture and I am a few centimeters taller now then before. What I am is not just totally enough – its awesome! Ha! (still smiling) – Thank you for being you.
What an amazing turn-around, Lee! It was so beautiful to read how you started choosing love and care for yourself and how this changed you into the tender and powerful man you are now. It is indeed a true joy to return ‘home’ and be who we are. And, very much worth it. Thank you Lee, your sharing was truly awesome.
It’s amazing how we can convince ourselves that a particular behaviour is not harmful or we measure it against another to justify what we are choosing. I was very similar Lee, I thought ecstasy was much less harmful than alcohol, but like you I chose both. What I put myself through during that period was not caring in any sense whatsoever. I love how with consistency you brought more and more love into your life, to let go of the behaviours that are not love and are not you. Thank you Lee for sharing your amazing turn around.
Very inspiring to read. What a awesome reflection to humanity.
Thanks Lee for your honesty in sharing your story. The contrast between the bleak isolation you came to after years of abuse to warm and loving simplicity you have returned to is amazing.
Lee, although I’m a women, how familiar your story is to me, including the overnight hospital stay. The deep desire for self annihilation is a common theme. “I don’t want any part of feeling this world” ran as a silent scream inside me for many, many years. And even though I managed to free myself from the drugs and alcohol I would always find a replacement, food, a cause, work, a relationship to maintain that thread of self abuse. Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine helped me to understand how I could calm the scream, care for myself and begin feeling again.
This is a beautiful and honest article about how pack behaviour and wanting to be part of the ‘in’ gang can lead to such devastation. Just steadily making different choices brings you back to the tender loving boy you started out as. This is such a clear message; we always have a choice. “Now, it is a joy to be me – the true man I am.”
You truly are an awesome man Lee Green. Thanks for sharing your story so honestly, it was great to read. I too have pondered on the idea of doing these things to be ‘free’ (drugs/alcohol etc… as I too did those as well) but it is such an illusion because we are not ‘breaking free’ of anything. I had such a moment when we were driving to a friends place for dinner a while ago and normally I would stop at the bottle o and pick up a bottle of wine so I would have to choose the wine, make sure I left time to go via the shop, have the cash etc… but as I no longer drank I did not have to do any of that. And I felt so free at that moment. Free of the hold alcohol had over me. It was pretty awesome. I never would have realised when I used to do all of that to get a bottle of wine that it was such a cumbersome process – it was just part of life! Not any more 😉
Sarah,
This made me laugh! So simple yet soo true, I am finding myself applying this simple, practical approach to letting go of a ‘sweet treat’ run to the shops at night!
How much simpler life becomes without these habits!!
Lee your blog really blew my mind. Having had people I know go through drug and alcohol problems allows me to see that yes there really is only one true way of overcoming this battle and that is with taking love and responsibility for yourself and not allowing others to do it for you. Thank you.
Awesome man indeed you are Lee, the choice to returning to self-responsibility and a commitment to living this responsibility in life is indeed so awesome.
Lee, a truly powerful piece that resonates very strongly for me. Many thanks for your sharing of a journey that I too have ‘endured’.
Your words “absolutely claiming that the relationship I had with me was loveless” has me reflecting how harming my ‘loveless-ness’ with my past actions have been to others.
I celebrate your journey and thank you for shining light on the path for me to share. Awesome that with choices that are loving and gentle – returning to ourselves can be met.
Thank you Lee for your honest and revealing article, it made me remember how I/we used to treat girls from a young age, the bulling and harassing and that was considered to be OK, and now I feel the horrible damaging affects that had.
It felt like there was such an anger in us young boys at not being met in our tenderness we had to try to crush the tenderness we felt in girls, and a jealousy that the girls were allowed to retain there tender, precious self’s, and we the boys were not.
Well exposed Thomas. This crushing does not end in school either. How often do we see this jealousy carry into relationships, the workplace and all areas of life if a man does not reclaim his own tenderness in the world, and instead allows his fury to bring down the precious reflections around him.
It is a great marker Lee to remind ourselves that we ‘deserve more, we deserve love’. Stopping to appreciate this truth is like coming home and I can come home to myself at any moment of the day. Thank you for that reminder Lee.
Thank you for opening up this conversation Lee, it has been lovely to read the comments by other men as well who have been through much the same ‘accepted as normal’ behaviour and are now no longer tricked by the lie of that and living lovingly with rich relationships as you do. May many more men read this beautiful article and break free of the isolating hardness they are forced into from a very young age. We all have the right to loving and tender relationships equally, with ourselves and with others.
Thank you Lee it is great how you share what True freedom has become for you as you took responsibility for your life.
What a beautifully honest article. You tell it all, Lee: the ugliness, the self abuse, the resistance to true responsibility. Your commitment to allow your self to unfold as a true man is inspirational and offer others in the same situation an insight into what is possible when a man says “Enough! This is not it,” and then allows himself to re connect to the tender boy he once was. Awesome.
Responsibility is huge for men, as we can choose to go with the ‘pack’ and ride the endless rollercoaster of ups and downs. This then leads to feeling ‘terrible’ but it is perceived as normal, so nothing is further looked at in detail. Stand out and be you, for others will never see a different way if we don’t.
Wow Ben, awesome words from an incredibly wise young man. ‘Stand out and be you, for others will never see a different way if we don’t.’ So true.
The way you have taken responsibility and turned your life around is truly remarkable, a great example of how it is all about the choices we make moment by moment.
Lee, this blog is very beautiful and very inspiring. Responsibility for me was like an opportunity that didn’t get picked up when I became an adult, still in the hurt of my childhood. It is a difficult pill to swallow, or egg to suck when we have to take responsibility for our choices and our hurts but it can only be done as you say with a commitment to loving you.
Thank you.
Yes Shannon I agree….. a commitment to loving ourselves sure does change the way we live our lives.
Your honesty is truly inspiring Lee. I too had issues with drug addiction and also believed that they were perfectly ok. As you said, better than alcohol. I was also able at a point in my life to see and feel that this way of living was no longer a way I wished to be. There was also the gentle man inside of me screaming out to be heard and I was finally ready to listen.
Thank you Lee, for sharing so openly about your life and how it changed, by taking responsibility, and a true relationship with yourself.
What on earth is it that allows us have such destructive tendencies with ourselves as we move from child to adult, and have it seen as “normal” by societies standards?
” That’s just what Teenagers do”.
Your story is fantastic Lee.
What’s scary is that I can related to it so easily – change a few small details and you have summed up teenage years that lasted well into my late 20’s / Early 30’s. And while I made some big changes myself in terms of stopping taking drugs and alcohol consumption- I have to be really honest and say that until I discovered Universal Medicine and its workshops and offerings – I still absolutely did not know how to properly take care of myself physically (even though I was fit and into surfing and yoga for many years), mentally and emotionally.
And what is even scarier is that this was completely “normal” for ALL of my friends. Male or female – it did not matter. To devastate ourselves with alcohol and drugs was seen as the natural, normal, cool, and only way of getting by in life.
What on earth would allow us to think this way and treat ourselves like that?
I still see it today in my young cousins and every weekend its easy to see it on the streets at night.
As a society we need to be asking questions about our younger members and how they are – and be doing everything we can to take better care of those children as they move into adulthood.
I love the honesty with which you share your story Lee. Unfortunately you are not alone and such behavior is occurring to a greater extent today as it is seen as quite normal by society.
We must allow boys to express their tenderness and fragility so that they don’t shut down, and they can become a ‘True Man”.
I agree Peter, the definition of what we boys are told to “become” at the moment is a mile apart from who they really are. Whats interesting is that perhaps there needs no lesson of what to become, rather support to allow the boys to be who they truly are and as you say express their tenderness and fragility – rather than fitting societies ideal and rules of what a man should be.
Beautiful!
‘knowing that I deserved more, that I deserved love’ – what a powerful statement that is true for all people equally! Each and every person in this world equally ‘deserves love’ – imagine when that is known and claimed by all – imagine the choices we would want to make for ourselves when we know that we deserve love … and the pathway to receiving this love is to loving ourself first!
Thank you Lee for sharing so openly how harming and unloving was the “normal”.
I too lived the same way relying on drugs and alcohol to get the “fun” into my life with the result of deepening emptiness and disconnection and not finding any satisfaction. In my thirties I felt I had danced on any party and it started to feel like greyhounds day for me, a cycle constantly repeating itself, only the consequences on my body where getting worse and worse. Through a workshop with Universal Medicine I connected to myself and I could leave this self abusive normal behind and started a life full of love and vitality where the joy is 24/7.
Absolutely gorgeous Lee. I love how you express how that so-called free-spiritedness which is all about escaping life is now replaced by a true freedom which comes with the joyful responsibility of simply being the real you. That is true freedom.
Awesome sharing Lee. I too got seduced by irresponsibility; that this was in some twisted way, ‘freedom’. To realise and express for us that it is actually responsibility that leads to freedom feels very supportive.
I too had an idea of what “freedom” was – which essentially related to avoiding responsibility, and I whole-heartedly agree David that the only way to experience real freedom is to take full responsibility.
A beautiful and honest sharing Lee – thank you. And to feel the tenderness in you through your writing, it’s gorgeous.
I can totally relate to the abuse and numbing choices you made in your earlier years Lee, and I was also so far away from myself I didn’t even realise it. Stepping back through those choices to a life of responsibility and love was not always easy, and there were times where I felt that it was in fact really hard – but perseverance paid off, and now I am also living a life full of loving and responsible choices, living the true woman I am.
Lee, thank you for sharing your journey. I particularly love the note on which you ended ” From the choice to BE all of me, without perfection or critique, my way of life has become responsible and this is where freedom truly lies. Now, it is a joy to be me – the true man I am.”
Thank you for sharing your story, Lee. It is so good to read what it is like to be a man in this world.
This is such an important story to share as so many tender boys become trapped being someone they are not, going along with the gang and finding anyway to escape feeling this. We tend to focus on the drugs or alcohol, yet it is the lost tenderness and sense of true self that is the real problem. How ironic that the freedom of partying is actually a prison and it is self-responsibility that allows us to feel purpose and true freedom.
Awesome point Fiona – “How ironic that the freedom of partying is actually a prison and it is self-responsibility that allows us to feel purpose and true freedom.”
There are also so many other more subtle ways young men and women use to protect themselves that does not usually raise eyebrows as they are not the extremes like drugs and alcohol, but are just as damaging and harmful on their bodies and who they think they are – such as hardening and becoming tough academically, using intelligence to keep the upper hand or diving into sports competitively. Lee’s blog is such a beautiful reminder that even with all of the things we can hide behind, our Tenderness, gentleness and gorgeousness is always there inside, just waiting.
Thank you Lee for such an amazing blog – sharing your journey will inspire many.
Wow Lee, I could so relate to what you have shared. Feeling as a young girl the loveliness and purity of who i was, then shut down as a result as what i felt from the world and people in it. I too took to alcohol and drugs throughout my teenage years and majority of my 20’s, as you so accurately portray, when i got into my 30’s, it was just how expensive the wine was that shifted, not the reasons for wanting to annihilate myself. This really only changed with me starting to take responsibility for my choices, wanting to feel what my hurts were and reconnect with that loveliness and purity that didn’t ever go away, but was just buried and protected from my more un-loving choices. Thank you for your great sharing, it was truly healing for me to reflect on my past, feel deeply where I have come and how loving i am with myself now and the choices i make in my life today.
Its funny how many of us choose this way of life including me. Choosing to not be responsible; and knowing that life is not the way it should be but we keep choosing it? What is the point to writing yourself off, and letting go of what we are truly feeling?
We surround ourselves with familiarity to feel comfortable with our choices. I choose for myself a life that was not really committed, no responsibility, and comforting the pain. And, why do we keep going day after day, year after year where in truth it did not feel right from the start. We continue .. and drive ourself into the wall.
For me I had enough. I wanted to change. I want a life that I wake up to not feeling how my choices the day before were effecting me now — the same depressing thoughts and draining me of my true nature to deeply take care of myself.
I made that choice, and continue to make that choice daily where responsibility is the key to my next day. Thank you Lee as this relates to many of us, if not ALL of us.
A credit to you Lee and a fine example for others
It is a bit hard to believe your past, when reading and feeling how beautiful, gentle and loving you are today.
Absolutely agreed Mark. I know Lee also and he is a truly loving and deeply caring, tender and astute man.
His story asks us to look more deeply behind the veneer so many of us may hide behind – drugs and alcohol and out of control behaviour being just a few possibilities… Are we not all such naturally amazing and tender men and women within?
I know I can relate to the struggle with ‘how the world is’ that Lee describes – spending a few years heavily influenced by alcohol myself. Thankfully, I started making other choices, and then was able to kick the drug completely through the deeper healing of my relationship with myself, others and yes, ‘the world’ that I can only attribute to the amazing inspiration, work and teachings of Universal Medicine.
Lee, what a journey you have been on. You have come full circle it would seem, now being a natural, tender and beautiful man just as you were when a young boy. Congratulations.
Thanks awesome man! loved your blog – and really resonated with the line “My relationships feel warmer and more honest: no roles to play, no job to ‘wear’ and no lies to ‘live’ in.”. I can totally relate as the choices I have made in my life have brought such a vast change to the way I am in and with the world, all stemming from the greater care and love I have for myself.
A beautiful, honest and incredibly inspiring blog that says no matter what our choices have been we can always come back to truth, responsibility and living in full, just as we did the day we were born.
A very honest blog Lee, thank you for sharing. I especially also loved and related to your statement – “I discovered there was another, gentler way to be a man, and that I could make lasting changes to my life simply by making different choices.”
I relate to your sharing also because all I had to do was change the word ‘ man’ into ‘woman’; Now I find myself being able to free the gentle and tender woman I am more and more.
Your article is my life as well Lee and also for many others. I did a lot of things that harmed me to be accepted and apart of the group. Not fully understanding why I was doing these things but not prepared to not do them and stand out. Now like you Lee I am changing my life, taking responsibility and being the awesome man that I am. Without perfection.
Thank-you Lee for your truly inspiring blog full of the true tenderness of a man that is ever present within all men but seldom shared with the world.
Very inspiring, and well expressed Lee. I realized that I was still alive, even after everything I had done to myself. I could express this better with a picture!
What a beautiful and inspiring blog Lee… I love this line and feel it sums up real freedom – “I discovered there was another, gentler way to be a man, and that I could make lasting changes to my life simply by making different choices.”
You have touched my heart Lee. I recall being frightened of the boys at school, with being teased about my looks, or teased with demands for kisses. I learned to put my head down and “disappear”…never understanding that these young men were as vulnerable as I was, and were struggling with what it meant to be a man.
This blog is so beautiful in the way it maps out your journey from teen to successful adult. The honesty you have brought in describing the way your techniques got more sophisticated, but the trap was the same very gently exposes a great myth in life.
We have been told that to own a cellar full of fine wine is a pinnacle in life, a sign of great success.
But what if the pinnacle was actually you, living yourself in full?
You are a living testimony to this Lee . Thank you.
There is something about this blog that makes it so easy to read. And after reading it, when I close my eyes I feel how beautiful the person who wrote it is.
‘Although there were many times when I just wanted someone else to do it for me – someone to pick me up and dust me off when the momentum of my self-harming choices would come crashing in and tear everything apart – I kept taking responsibility.’ I can so relate to this! I too just keep taking responsibility no matter how strong the longing for someone else to. We rock, Awesome Man!
Most often we look to the movies to see ‘super heroes’ but Lee Green you are a real
Superman, to me. It takes awesome strength to go into the ‘room of mirrors’ and have a good look at yourself and take responsibility for the choices you have made and the courage to make true loving choices from that moment on.
‘The Room of Mirrors’ should be welcomed and not feared, it is a wonderful support for us to be able to see the ‘what is’ and the ‘what is not’ of God.
So gorgeous to read of your story of discovering true freedom. Thank you.
I just so love the tenderness with which this is written, a far cry from how Australian men are taught to be.
It is so gorgeous to re-read your article Lee, ‘There was no joy in that struggle, no love, no care for me or for others’, I was also into drinking and drugs as a teenager and can feel the absolute truth in what you write here, for me it all looked fun – me and my friends would find it hilarious at the drunken situations we would end up in, but it also felt empty, loveless and destructive and I do not miss drinking and drugs or this scene one bit.
Thank you Lee for your honest sharing. It is amazing what we men often do because of the fact that we do not want to feel the world as it is and that we allow the world to tell us how we should be, what we have to choose in life. Utterly absurd when we look at the tender and beautiful boys we innately are and that we allow us to leave that place for feeling accepted in life. It is great that you now are able to look back at the old days as the lovingly living man.
A beautiful blog about what happens when we are honest and willing to take responsibility for our choices and live lovingly. Thank you Lee for sharing your story and how it has led to you living a truly free life. An amazing and inspiring turnaround.
What an inspiration you are Lee for all men. All the men i know are such beautiful, loving and tender men but we live in a world where the beliefs and ideals about men are so strong. Their responsibility for taking care of others, being the provider, having to earn money, being strong and tough makes them go into a lot of doing, giving them quite some stress and anxiety. It’s almost like they don’t allow themselves to stop and to just be. That living lovely is something which is not ‘tough’ or ‘man like’. But in fact, all the men are just so lovely, tender and sweet, but are they allowing themselves to be this? And, are we as women allowing them to be this?
…’My only responsibility as a man is simply about living lovingly in my day with me.’ – totally awesome Lee; what’s amazing about you claiming that, is I would imagine that a lot of men have mental lists of all the responsibilities they ‘have’ to take on in order to be a ‘real man’ e.g. work out, be tool handy, and be the financial provider for the family etc., but you are offering a different, MUCH more loving way of approaching what it is to be a true man. Thank you
A recent report has just come out in the media stating that 40% of Australians engage in risky behaviour including drugs, smoking and drinking. This report also stated how the emergency staff in Australian hospitals are inundated with drunken and disorderly people around christmas time and how that affects the level of care they are able to give other patients. It is time that we started to have the conversation that this cannot be normal behaviour.
Andrew. So true in what you say in your blog about peoples behaviour during the festive season, and the pressure they put on the health service. The same happens here in the UK. It is time people took responsibility for their actions, and consider those who really need the use of the health services.
These are alarming statistics, this is referring to a lot of people. Another question is why are so many people going to such lengths or engaging in risky behaviour? What is going on underneath the drugs and alcohol etc?
This is such a gorgeous blog Lee. It is a joy to come back to. It is truly wonderful to witness you and so many others to come back to your true tenderness as men.
A truly great blog Lee, I have found it is the most liberating thing not needing alcohol.
This is very inspirational Lee, as your behaviour back then is probably very typical of many a youth out with their mates and to see that you have chosen to live a different life for yourself and turned things around, heading for a total different future. Well done!
“These devastating behaviours were considered normal for us as boys: it was just what we did.” it seems these patterns of bullying behaviours have not changed over the generations as they still continue and both our young boys and girls are hurting these days. It shows how important it is to speak against what is not true to enable change .
How many of us men have lived as boys under the strain of not expressing who we are and how we really feel and want to act. I for one can attest to that and the strain of not expressing in the qualities I actually wanted to live. Tenderly and gently, being a man who feels an immense amount and doesn’t actually want to carry a toughness as a shield to keep the world out but actually wants to express in those qualities that are naturally who I am with no desire to act tough or pretend to be someone I am not.
So many of us in our younger days think rebellion will lead to freedom, and also that being able to do and say just what we like is our right. This attitude can continue into later life, and a common belief at the moment that I have heard expressed frequently on the radio, is that we have the right of free speech even if that is in the form of verbally abusing someone. You show us, Lee, how making a choice to change your perceptions and take responsibility for respecting yourself and everyone else, brings a way of life that is loving for all and is true freedom.
I don’t think there would be many Lee who did not experience the teenage house parties, getting totally wrecked and “adult behaviour” as anything other than normal, whether they joined in or went along because their friends were doing it. But to buck the trend and be able to say you now live “a truly free life, where my only responsibility as a man is simply about living lovingly in my day with me” is amazing. It is lovely to now know so many young people who are choosing to not spend their teenage years in this way and who already have a way of living lovingly, such that they are not drawn to what is so easily classed as Normal.
Thats true Rosanna – every where you turn the house parties, getting “wasted” went on (goes on). It raises the point that just because something is happening all around does that mean it makes it normal?
The depth of sharing in all these comments to your blog Nico is so inspiring. It is beautiful to have the expressions from the men who are letting go of the ‘old expected way of being’ to embrace their tenderness within – which is such a gift for women…..and so the cycle continues and deepens as we support each other with these true changes. In deep appreciation of you all, women and men alike, as we celebrate and embody these truths.
Lee. What a real role model you are. Going from what you were putting your self through in your youth, to where you are today. I agree Universal Medicine has been such a help to so many people over the years.
I love this sentence Lee – “My relationships feel warmer and more honest: no roles to play, no job to ‘wear’ and no lies to ‘live’ in.” Truly freeing.
I agree there were so many times in the past that I just followed people and got involved in situations against my better judgement. Even when I had had too much to drink, I could still feel what was right or wrong but choose the wrong path, knowing that it could be dangerous. Alcohol and low self worth are a bad combination.
Wow, thank you for sharing how you have ‘grown up’. For so long I can remember having linked with being an ‘adult’ with ‘responsibility’ but in that responsibility I have perceived it to be a huge, miserable burden. However from observing many role models from Universal Medicine I can see that responsibility is not a weight but a great sense of power and strength. I loved how you said that no matter how much you wanted someone to do it for you you stuck to it and kept choosing to be responsible. It is deeply inspiring and yet another great example of how being responsible brings joy and not burden.
It’s incredible how generally we excuse our behaviour and that of others as so called normal just because many people are doing the same. How often do we also hear the phrases ” Oh they are just being kids” or “It’s just a phase they are going through”. Each generation excuses the next because they can remember feeling a similar sadness or hurt at not being supported to be themselves and wanting to escape or fight back somehow with self-abusive behaviour. The problem is that with each generation the self-abuse seems to be getting more and more extreme. Perhaps it is time to say it is not normal and it doesn’t just happen or necessary at all. As you have described Lee maybe there is another way?
Thank you, Lee. I enjoyed re-reading this blog, especially the freedom I feel from your words – “no roles to play, no job to ‘wear’ and no lies to ‘live’ in”. It is truly amazing when we can finally just let ourselves be.
Congratulations Lee. This is a joy and inspiration to read. Thank you for sharing so candidly and openly, To read an article like this is such a support for others struggling with self-loathing and addictions. And it is a joy to read “it is a joy to be me – the true man I am.”
Lee this is a great blog. I also just used to do life, anything and everything because that is what you did. The fact my actions where also screaming out in pain that I did not want to be part of it was neither here nor there because as long as I kept going perhaps everything would get better! You have shown through your blog another level of responsibility first by admitting and being honest with what was really going on. I’ve made a number of changes and feel very different as a result, looking back I’m amazed at what I did and I am sure in 2-3 years from now looking back I will again be amazed at the changes I make. You have inspired me to go deeper and especially explore your point “knowing that I deserved more, that I deserved love.”
What an amazing sharing Lee, to transform your life from ‘Screaming at the world through behaviour that was effectively saying: “I do not want any part in feeling this world”, ‘ to’ From the choice to BE all of me, without perfection or critique, my way of life has become responsible and this is where freedom truly lies. Now, it is a joy to be me – the true man I am. Is totally inspiring, your words brought tears to my eyes. Thank you Lee.
Yours is a very familiar story Lee I see a lot of me in it. I used to feel totally imprisoned by the booze, nicotine etc as I had to always consider if I had enough to get me through what I was about to do. Being free of that imprisonment is a joy in itself. Sometimes I come across old friends and even though I look a lot better and healthier than I used to, I can feel that they kind of pity me in the way I am living, as they just cannot relate that no drinking, early nights and to them such a boring existence could in anyway be a fun joyous way to live. To me life’s never been so good.
“It was just what we did”. Oh crumbs. There is so much from my past that I did because of that sentence. So much alcohol that I drank because of that sentence. So many drugs that I put in my body because of that sentence. So much disrespect with which I treated women because of that sentence. So much garbage food, total lack of care of myself, complete blindness to other members of humanity…because of that sentence. There is of course much behind that sentence; the way we are brought up, the pressure from peers, the considered norms of society and, most of all, our own choices. It was as you say ‘normal’. But now I see how utterly abnormal it all was. How insane it all was. It is a real joy to hear your words Lee and inspiring to hear how you have turned your life around. I too have made similar quantum leaps. By the simple acts of claiming responsibility for myself and my choices and committing to the true gentle and tender man that has always been there. Always. And now, the idea of doing any of those things to myself feels so utterly alien. So totally abnormal.
There is a tremendous freedom in accepting that as a man you can be gentle and don’t have to be tough and put on an act. I spent most of my life living that act and it always felt so false It feels great to choose to let that go and work on being more and more tender and gentle, no longer caring if someone thinks i’m this or that.
I agree Stephen there is a sense of freedom which comes from not caring what other people think of us – this is something I am always working with. I feel privileged to have met men who are gentle, tender and loving themselves – it has changed my perception of men and my relationships have changed as a result.
It’s great that you are claiming this, Stephen. As a woman I always preferred the company of men who were gentle and didn’t put on an act, try to be tough or be someone they were not. The more men that claim this for themselves the more it gives other men permission to do the same.
Rachel I was the same, I also always preferred men that were gentle and not acting out tough or hard. Men that acted out just put me off, I could not relate to them at all. So it’s great that more men are claiming themselves inspiring others to do the same.
This is lovely Stephen, it’s very beautiful to meet men who are being their naturally tender, gentle selves and not, putting on an act. Gorgeous to read that you are working ‘on being more and more tender and gentle, no longer caring if someone thinks i’m this or that.’
The thing is Stephen, people can think that we’re ‘this or that’ but they intrinsically know who we are deep down because they know that they’re that too.
Great point Gill – I’ve used the same expression myself. It is often easy to think we have no choice in what we do. That it’s the way I am but in that there is – no responsibility. Reading the changes Lee has made shows that if we choose we can make amazing changes in our life. We need support but everything is not lost – something that is easy to forget when we are in the middle of it and it seems like groundhog day.
Reading your experience it was slightly different to mine but more or less the same. Self destructive behaviour and not willing to take any responsibility for my part in life. I now no longer have this destructive behaviour. I appreciate and accept myself more and more, am healthier, have loving relationships and take responsibility for my choices and actions. With thanks to the support and inspiration of Universal Medicine, Serge Benhayon and the Universal Medicine Practioners.
Working with teenagers I am more aware that this same, if not worse, destructive behaviour still goes on. It is good that we have been able to turn our lives around and I am just really aware that it would be good to help others do the same for themselves, so self loving behaviours become the norm for the next generations, and not self destructive ones.
Hi Lee, I love this blog, it makes me feel so clean and shiny and reminds me how great taking care of myself is! I too was the same with justifying my life style by thinking drugs were better than alcohol, whilst indulging in both…. So very very numb to the harsh facts of reality.
It is amazing how we can spend a life time trying to fit into the world the way it wants us to be. The whole time suppressing who we naturally are. What is even more amazing is when we come back to our true self, we find it has patiently been waiting for us to return the whole time and it doesn’t mater how long we have been gone.
“Now, the old days of living a life that seemed ‘free’ have been well and truly surpassed by a truly free life, where my only responsibility as a man is simply about living lovingly in my day with me.” It’s funny how we feel the need to ‘free’ ourselves from the choices and situations we put ourselves in – these heavy chains around our necks…it can make you realise how important the choice to do things for yourself is, with the clarity of no pull from another wether that be a person, society, ideals or beliefs. We are programmed to respond this way to life, to deal with it, to get through it, but as you say the difference is enormous when we live it, lovingly so.
Wow thank you for sharing your journey Lee.
Great reminder to keep making self-loving choices. Thanks Lee.
I keep coming back to the words, ‘living lovingly in my day with me’, they are both simple and inspiring.
Yes I feel that too, and it is really simple isn’t it?
Such an inspiring article thank you Lee
Really inspiring and supportive to read again Lee, Thank you.
Thank you Lee, I was deeply touched with the question and statement in the middle of your article: “How is it possible that the natural, tender, beautiful boy I was born, turned into anything but that? Screaming at the world through behaviour that was effectively saying: ‘I do not want any part in feeling this world’, devastated at being told by the world every step of the way: you cannot stay that joyful, loving, deeply caring boy – you have to choose/exist ‘this’ way.”
This is the predicament I know every human being is acutely aware of and I once wished I had a magic wand to wave it away; I loved the ending: “My relationships feel warmer and more honest: no roles to play, no job to ‘wear’ and no lies to ‘live’ in. From the choice to BE all of me, without perfection or critique, my way of life has become responsible and this is where freedom truly lies. Now, it is a joy to be me – the true man I am.”
From living life as the first paragraph, I have now started to live the latter as a woman. I know I owe this to a great part to Serge Benhayon and his family who consistently live in this manner, who for the past eight years have provided a solid example that such is possible and have without fail, related to me and everyone else in that manner. This has provided great healing for me and has allowed me to start shedding the hurts, strategies and self-judgments that cripple our true expression. Now I know – if I want a magic wand to wave away the predicament humanity is in, that magic wand is ME. I will not be able to wave away anyone’s problems because each of us need to deal with our own issues. But as I adopt a more responsible life, just as I have been inspired by others in my life, I will provide that inspiration and that window of possibility for another.
I love this writing Lee and especially your signature ‘Awesome Man”. I have to say that responsibility is not a word that I have liked. Up until very recently I took responsibility to mean paying bills, going to work and being an honest citizen, but from what you share here you’re taking responsibility to another level – being responsible for ALL of our choices in life.
A honest, open and inspiring sharing , Lee. It shows a turnaround in life is possible at any time through our own choices. Thank you!
I absolutely agree Susan, Lee is a walking inspiration, showing us how he exposed the lie he was living and turned his life around = deeply profound.
I love your blog Lee. Thank you.
Thanks Lee this is a great point you make about what is true freedom. I can relate to feeling the tension or pressure from the world to be a certain way, to conform to a certain ideal of manhood. I too went into behaviours that I thought were a rebellion against that, only to find that I had just changed from one prison to another. It is my experience also that the only true freedom can be found in re-connecting to the true man I am through gentleness and self-worth. I finally feel free to be me!
I am a woman, and I relate to your story a lot, which is a little scary, in fact I was more crazy and far out than anyone I knew, but at the time I thought it was kind of cool. The things I ‘got away with’ were so crazy, I can’t believe that colleagues, friends and family accepted my behaviour. But a drinking, partying and drug taking life style is the ‘normal’ for so many so it doesn’t seem to cause too much concern, or surprise. Since I have stopped drinking, and become more responsible and started to truly care for my health in every way this seems to be seen as more odd. But as time goes on people become a little more curious, and start to notice the difference. It feels like this is the new cool that comes with a natural sparkle and ease.
Hear hear to the ‘new cool’ Laura… Setting the trend of our True Living Way.
Lee, what an amazing transformation you have gone through. As teenagers we all assumed that is was the norm to get legless on a Saturday night or any night of the week. What a real eye opener you have shown us all on how to act in a responsible way, and still enjoy ourselves. It takes great courage to come back into love, and get to know ones true self for who you are.
I don’t know how old you were when you started Lee but from my experience now I know children are becoming addicted to pot at as young an age of 12. A big piece of advice I was given before, was look at a picture of you as a innocent baby, would you treat that baby the same way you treat your body?
That is such a great piece of advice for pretty much every situation in life. To treat ourselves with as much care, love and nurturing as if we were a baby.
That’s a good piece of advice Oliver. If we could hold that image of ourselves as a baby in our minds or better still in our hearts, of a tender bundle of pure love, how difficult would it be to put ourselves through any form of abuse or disregard?
That’s pretty good advice Oliver, I will remember that 🙂
Love this blog Lee, just read it again and it is such a sweet reminder of the re-claiming you have chosen, and for me too. The fact that I noticed the downward spiral wasn’t actually fulfilling the investment I thought I was making and how taking control of that has made my life amazing. Thank you.
What I find so amazing Lee is your honesty and the gigantic strength in claiming such a turnaround in your life. The FORCE of the normal is so strong, so relentless, so everywhere. It takes such a commitment, such a knowing to daily and consistently commit to another way. In fact, when I take a big, big look at the FORCE of the normal I actually get very inspired. Because it proves to me that we all know that it isn’t the normal. We must do. Because how else would we ever have the strength to ‘beat’ that FORCE. As you have so beautifully described, all we need to start doing is listen to ourselves, hear that knowing, acknowledge that all that behaviour does feel wrong. And then, in the face of that honesty, the force of the normal is rendered useless. Because we do ALL know that it isn’t normal.
This is the second time I have read your blog Lee, reading it again bought tears to my eyes, your honesty is amazing and deeply inspiring. I love that you wrote “my only responsibility as a man is simply about living lovingly in my day with me”, wow this is beautiful!
Thankyou Lee, I can really relate to what you have said.
This has to be one of the most honest and open blogs I have read. Its pretty incredible to read how you have turned your life around from existence to joyfulness Lee. An inspiration for all who have lived or are living an unhappy and less than vibrant life.
Isn’t it incredible that we think recklessness and pretending not to care and ignoring what our bodies are telling us is freedom ? This is a brilliant article Lee. Telling it as it is. I used to avoid responsibility in lots of ways too. I am beginning to realise the gorgeous gift that is there for us when we do choose it. This is, indeed, where true freedom lies.
So true Elaine. I am discovering more and more how responsibility is actually a Joy-full thing, not a heavy burden at all. Why would we want to leave our bodies struggling all the time, when a few simple loving choices can leave us feeling amazing. Life can then truly start!
Amazing comment Natalie, lovely to read about the changes you made in your life, very inspiring.
Gosh, that it so true Natalie, Such a crazy world that we live in when we look at alcohol and drugs as a normal thing… even drugs that you would think are not drugs. Many might accept that alcohol and smoking are harmful, but very few would look at caffeine or sugar as a problem. By also choosing to not consume these things I have also in reality, had a lot to gain and have built a truer, richer and loving life. Like you, the process wasn’t aways easy, but I kept persisting and it was well worth it!
This is awesome Lee. The transformation you have is expressed is tangible and a joy to read. The tender strength in what you say here is beautiful.
“Although there were many times when I just wanted someone else to do it for me – someone to pick me up and dust me off when the momentum of my self-harming choices would come crashing in and tear everything apart – I kept taking responsibility.”
Expressing your openness to vulnerability and yet taking full responsibility, truly inspirational. Thank you for your open honesty.
Lee it is so inspirational how you changed your life, especially during a really vulnerable period. It is not easy when the momentum of self harming choices keep coming and crashing in. By being commited and taking full responsibility you were able to turn your life around – this is great, that we always have choices we can take to turn our life around.
Such a crazy world that we live in when we look at alcohol and drugs as a normal thing… even drugs that you would think are not drugs. Anything that is addictive really is a drug. Look at caffeine or sugar, they both have this addictive quality to them. This is something that we totally consider normal but in reality they are a substance that artificially stimulates us. I remember some of my family and peers, when I decided to stop drinking alcohol and taking obvious drugs, could not understand why I would want to do it and they would be constantly saying “are you sure you don’t just want one” or “everything in moderation”. Now over time those peers and family can see the enormous difference in me that even they have considered that it may not be the ‘normal’ thing to do. I too work in hospitality and have daily conversations with my customers about my choices because they ask me and are intrigued as to how I look and feel amazing. At the time it wasn’t easy but there was something strong inside of me saying give it a go – what have you got to loose. The reality was I had a lot to gain, a true, richer and loving life.
What a breath of fresh air, so open and honest. It is amazing that you have come out of all of that abuse to find the true man that you are now – there will be many men and women inspired by your words, of that I am sure.
I can relate to trying my hardest to go down the drugs and alcohol route, but my body just reacted too badly and it was not having any of it – now of course, I am extremely grateful for the side effects my body would present to me. Great blog, thank you for sharing.
Your honest blog was such a pleasure to read. How inspiring for others to read and know that it is possible to leave a huge momentum of ill choice behind in favour of making loving ones and to know what it really means to be a true man in expression… tender, loving and gentle. Thank your for sharing.
Well said Rachel. Thank you Lee for sharing how possible it is to leave a life of ill choices and choose loving ones and return to the tender, loving man that you are.
Thank you Lee for a beautiful sharing. It highlights the importance and simplicity of choosing to connect to and live as ourself. Nothing tricky simply a willingness to reconnect to how we felt as our tender selves as a little boy or girl. I have discovered, in accepting this innate tenderness and that all the self abusive choices are as a result of trying to deny this, it is possible to return to what I feel and know in my body, and I am responsible for nurturing this beautiful quality.
The big word for me is self- annihilation and you’ve got this spot on. I didn’t have the same opportunities to abuse girls because I was stuck in the single sex boarding school system – so I turned to alcohol and tobacco instead and prided myself on the fact that I didn’t take drugs. But all along I was in a downward spiral so that my life was managed around opportunities for drinking and smoking. With the help of my family and the patience and non judgment of Serge Benhayon I began to take control but the big step was overcoming my resistance to making choices that would support me. There’s still a way to go but, thank you Lee, because you’re a great inspiration to take responsibility.
What I love here is that you admitted the hurt you felt at not being able to be yourself, but instead of continuing to harm yourself you stopped and begun to love yourself back. This is very very inspiring and encouraging Lee.
Wow, that is quite some journey Lee. Thank you for your deep honesty in this sharing and you are so right in that all you have to do is to live those self-loving choices everyday with the one person that matters the most-YOU.
Awesome Lee, thank you for your honest sharing! Its amazing to read how you have changed so much, and how you recall and look back with no judgement of your self.
Thank you sharing Lee – the Awesome man from Perth! I too got caught up in the cycle in my teenage years and thank-fully did not continue the drugs and partying into my twenties! It is amazing as looking back I knew it was not right but everyone was seemingly doing it so it seemed ok and something I should be doing. Over the years of being a Student of the Way of the Livingness and attending presentations from Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I have come to realise that it is ok to be the tender loving man I am, I can show my sensitive side – not as a weakness, as I used to think it was from peoples comments, rather as a strength. The way Serge has inspired thousands of people to make the loving choices for ourselves is incredible. The changes which you have made deserve to be celebrated – who knows where you would have ended up – it is also great to see for myself where I could have ended up but chose not to!
A super blog Lee. I have enjoyed reading it and all the comments. Its so crazy what is still accepted as normal. People still raise an eyebrow when they hear I don’t drink because not drinking is considered weird. Its upside down and back to front. I related to when you said ‘there were many times when I just wanted someone else to do it for me – someone to pick me up and dust me off ..’ Taking responsibility is the key and your story is very inspiring.
Fab blog Lee – my teenage years and 20s were the same but from a female perspective… Seems so odd looking back for me now that I did all these things that in my heart I didn’t really want to do. And my body told me repeatedly from day one not to do them but I forcefully overrode my feelings in the name of being cool (liked) and because “that’s just what you do”. I certainly feel like I’ve an angel on my shoulder watching out for me as some of the risky situations I put myself in I am lucky I escaped that’s for sure. And now my angel gently nudges me back to myself in a process that I love so much. Everyone talks about peeling the layers that aren’t you off like an onion, to get to the true you (your essence) and for me this feels like going from a small contracted hardened caterpillar into a big beautiful amazing butterfly. Thanks Lee, really good to stop and appreciate how far you, me and so many others have come once self responsibility is lived.
WOW Lee what an amazing turn around, thank you for your deep honesty. It takes true courage for a man to stop and address his lack of self worth and lovelessness, but hey when you do, YOU ARE AMAZING! This is a true life story that every young man should read, to know that the beautiful tenderness that lies deep inside is their greatest strength and that there is a way of living that honours that expression to the full. This is not about being effeminate but becoming the true Gentleman in all meanings of the word. And true Gentlemen are irresistible! Thank you for the Beautiful Tender Man you are.
I agree with you Rowena – an amazing and inspiring blog sharing with deep honesty the great turnaround in your life Lee. I can feel the gentle and tender man you truly are.
Thank you.
Yes, well said Rowena. It is so inspiring to encounter men who have stopped and addressed their lack of self-worth. It has been a struggle for me, as you well know and it is with deep appreciation I thank you for your support in my stopping.
Beautifully expressed, I relate to it all and it is just wonderful, how once we make the first step the rest just has to follow. Thank you for sharing with such honesty.
Hi Lee your honesty is so refreshing it feels awesome and really inspiring how you turned your life around. Even when things got uncomfortable for you to look at and you had times of wanting someone else to do it for you; you stayed with you and the responsibility of the choices you made. We need to support the younger ones now to let them know there is another and they can stay in their natural tenderness and gentleness.
Thank you, Lee for an amazing blog. Your honesty is so inspiring as it is so necessary for healing to occur and the ability to take responsibility. Although I did not partake in drugs to to the same level, I was still “numbing, selling out and destroying myself in the process of ‘living’ from boy to ‘man’.” I did what was ‘normal’ but which in truth was not normal and “the natural, tender, beautiful boy I was born, turned into anything but that?” But with the help of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine there has been a re-birth.
Thank you Lee, for sharing so openingly and with such humility your journey toward becoming the true man you are today.
Well said Amina – inspiring to see how simple it can be through such a great article.
I was really struck by the courage and honesty in your blog, particularly in your ‘claiming that the relationship I had with me was loveless’. To move from that place to ‘my only responsibility as a man is simply about living lovingly in my day with me’ is an incredible outcome. A great insight into the world of boy to man which is a privilege to read. Thanks Lee.
Alcohol is the only drug where it is socially unacceptable to not have it. Isn’t it ridiculous to stand out in society for choosing to not consume a poison.
Absolutely crazy Stephen and the pressure on young people seems to get even more extreme so we desperately need role models to show that there is another way to choose to live.
Absolutely – very well said – it definitely does not make any sense whatsoever.
Alcohol’s entrenchment in society is one of the horrors of life today. And yes how mad that choosing not to consume it is considered abnormal or weird. I remember the moment I stopped drinking alcohol, aged 24, and the incredulity of those around me, a lot of which, I felt, was discomfort because someone was questioning a status quo they were attached to?
It’s a great point and shows how deeply entrenched the behaviour is. And shows your great courage Lee in managing to turn the tide of what is ‘normal’.
An honest, open and inspiring blog that simply shows how our lives can turn around no matter what our previous choices in life have been. And you’ve nailed the how with these three points: “Over time, I began taking true responsibility in what I chose for myself through: absolutely claiming that the relationship I had with me was loveless, making the choice to take care of myself in gentleness,
knowing that I deserved more, that I deserved love.” Awesome Lee, Thank you.
Well said Julie, it’s a great blog by Lee. The three points you’ve highlighted feel very important. Responsibility, honesty and claiming the love that we deserve. Thank you for the reminder.
Thank you Lee, your honesty is inspiring and it is great to feel how this has supported you to well and truly turn things around. In celebration of the beautiful man you are today.
Dear Lee, Awesome Man, Perth – you so are! This is a beautifully honest article that shows that there is a choice not to live by what is the accepted norm but to make self-loving choices that bring greater love and connection to our own lives and to those around us.
What a way to start my day…thanks Lee. Accepting my responsibility to self and humanity truly does invite the Freedom to enjoy living. Inspiring stuff.
I love this blog and the comments. What we are sold and buy into as normal is indeed bonkers crazy, head scratching stuff as we now stand in very different places. It is like it was another life for me, like did I really do that to myself, how could I have been so unloving to myself. You show it brilliantly here Lee what happens when we let our hurts and irresponsibility run the show. I realised recently that I no longer feel anxious or guilty when I see a police car and I clicked that was because I take far greater responsibility now for myself and have no need to get caught out with how I am living. It is awesome to live like this and I would not have gotten off that crazy normal train if I hadn’t been introduced to the Gentle Breath Meditation by Serge Benhayon as that literally stopped me in my tracks and said whoa there is something more here, something far greater than what you are living. Amazing. For that I am eternally grateful.
Thanks for writing this – a familiar pattern that I have lived out as well. The glorious thing I remember as I started to make better choices and stop the self abuse was being re-introduced to how I felt as a boy… it proved to me that things can be as clean and simple as they were back then if only we keep making those choices.
This is an extraordinary blog, thank you. I was particularly struck by the raw honesty of you saying that ‘there was no joy in that struggle, no love, no care for me or for others, just a self-annihilating existence that grew bleaker and bleaker.’ It is a surely true heroism to firstly be willing to see that that is how your life is, and then to come from that bleakness to the abundance of joy and love that you now live. I don’t know of many books that have that sort of hero in them.
The bleaker state of being in such a common thought for us all when we make choices to live in the mindset that this is the only way to live. Thank you for sharing that there is another way when we bring responsibility into the picture.
Thanks for exposing the ‘lie’. I really like ‘What this means for me is learning to take more and more responsibility for all that happens in my life, and understanding that all my choices have consequences. Imagine if we all got to that, wow, can you imagine how awesome it would be?’
The deep honesty of this article is inspiring, I too recognise the partying with alcohol to the extent of vomiting in most unsuitable places, and these days living an alcohol free life feels so much clearer, but, recently I have realised that I was still creating abuse against myself with constant self-criticism and judgement. Your words ‘absolutely claiming that the relationship I had with me was loveless’ resonated deep within me and today I move on with a resolve to live ‘lovingly in my day with me.’
Absolutely Carmel there is always a deeper level to go to.
To willingly choose to ingest things that make us vomit in ‘most unsuitable places’ really brings it home to me just how far from our energetic roots we’ve allowed ourselves to get. Shame on us, not as a judgement but more as a statement of fact.
Great blog Lee – I can relate to what you are saying on many levels – especially the loveless lifestyle! And yes, wanting someone else to come and do it for me!! Yet I also know the key to freedom for me is taking responsibility for my choices – all of them!
Lee, I have deep appreciation for how honestly you describe the boy to man transition you underwent – which is in fact what all of we men have undergone – with slight variations in the scenery. The common theme, as Eunice has pointed out, is lovelessness and the common momentum is whatever it takes to not feel the emptiness of ignorant choices. And I mean ignorant as in unintelligent, disconnected and lacking in responsibility. Again Eunice provides the key, they are my choices, all of them and if I truly feel their effects on me (and Humanity) that is the beginning of maturity, the beginning of wisdom.
Great blog Lee, a lot of it sounds very familiar. It’s just so amazing to come out the other side and become who we are truly meant to be.
I agree Kevin, totally.
Lee, Awesome Man this is awesome. I love how you captured the growing up lifestyle of alcohol and hedonism as ‘normal’ as this was the norm growing up for me too.
Thank you, Lee, for expressing so clearly the utter madness of what we have accepted as normal ‘boy/teenage/young man’ behaviour. How utterly crippling for men to be caught in this, with their natural sweetness, tenderness and connection with humanity shut away and suppressed. Your ‘coming back to life’ expressing your true nature is inspiring.
An awesome article Lee that shows how we allow ourselves to be fooled by thinking we have freedom when in fact we are trapping ourselves in a self-abusive spiral. The inspiration that you felt the truth and have found true freedom in the loving man that you are.
The picture you described pretty much depicts any high school or university students’ livingness. What is great to hear is the reasons behind why these situations may occur. What is even more amazing is to hear and know that it doesn’t have to be this way and that you can indeed return to the gentle true you with a little loving commitment.
Absolutely Beautiful Lee, an inspiring account of how you turned your life around knowing that you deserved love.
This was an inspiring blog Lee. I enjoyed hearing you say “it took me a long time to overcome the resistance to making choices that would support (not destroy) me”. Well done for this article, it’s an amazing read.
What a great and inspiring article, I really enjoyed reading and relating to it in many ways but especially this, ‘there were many times when I just wanted someone else to do it for me – someone to pick me up and dust me off when the momentum of my self-harming choices would come crashing in and tear everything apart – I kept taking responsibility’, this was/is very similar for me, thank you for sharing.
Thank you Lee. My life has been similar, at the same time different, but led to the same end “self-annihilating existence”. I can fully feel where we are at today “Now, it is a joy to be me – the true man I am.”
Thank you Lee for sharing so honestly about your journey from irresponsibility towards yourself and others, to committing to a different way ‘a truly free life, where my only responsibility as a man is simply about living lovingly in my day with me.’ Simple but awesome.
This shows so much truth in what we thought was the “norm” but really is sooo far away from it, as you said Lee, our tender gentle loving beings that we are.
How we all construct our little lie that feeds the bigger lie that we have all subscribed to – the ‘norm’ is actually not a truth in any way – a mere sham to stop us feeling and truly connecting to the magnificence we are.
Very true Lee. It’s funny how we make ourselves believe that not looking after ourselves is the right thing to do.
Absolutely Lee, Rhiannon and Monica. That was what stood out for me in this blog too. All the extreme behaviours are supported just because it is ‘normal’ when you grow up (or as an adult too) to do these things. When it is actually not true or loving to do at all for ourselves. So is this ‘normal’ hiding what is truly going on?
Rhiannon if it was just that we didn’t look after ourselves it would be bad enough but we trash ourselves ! We quite literally trash ourselves.
Thank you for this Lee. It’s a great testament to how easy it is to buy into self-abusive patterns and accept them as ‘normal’. The simplicity of taking care of ourselves and living life truly as ourselves, once committed to and chosen as truth, has far greater rewards than we can ever imagine when we are stuck on the treadmill of ‘just trying to get by without feeling too much’.
Naren that’s it, the simplicity of living in a way that cares for us deeply – it’s all that is needed.
Very true Naren, getting no the treadmill of life is something we have all done. Making life about ‘just getting on with it’, ‘not truly feeling what is going on’, or ‘not committing to life’, all things we have experienced. We can continue on that treadmill or look at life from love, not the self abusive patterns we accept as ‘normal’.
So true Naren, for when we get stuck on the treadmill of our self-abusive patterns we take step after the same step until we wake up to the fact that this is not the way we can live to our potential.
Thank you Lee Green for your honest, inspiring blog. I also put myself through years of drinking and drug taking, I can really relate to the part about you going to hospital and how this seemed funny to you and your friends. I was in a similar situation from over drinking, it’s great that you put these experiences into words as it exposes how abusive and un self-loving they really are, and how crazy it is that they are labelled as “cool”, “funny”, “normal” when they are anything but this.
Rebecca it’s true isn’t it, we laugh and joke about the misfortunes we have with alcohol and drugs, the scary moments are played down like we all need them to be okay otherwise we cannot truly justify drinking or taking substances that are known to harm our bodies.
Thank you Lee for this inspiring blog. What especially resonated with me was how we tricked and fooled ourselves into believing that by choosing this hedonistic party life that this was freedom. When in truth it takes us further and further away from ourselves and any connection to self, which is true freedom. So lovely to feel the tenderness and simplicity of the life you are now living.
This is true Anne-Marie. The apparent ‘freedom’ is like taking the corridor off the room we had all inhabited. The room where we had chosen to be anything but ourselves and thus when an opportunity comes to escape that lie, that way of living we take it up with both hands willing this to give us some respite. Of course it does for a moment and yet the relief we are offered is only momentary, it’s then we realise that we have another lie to perpetuate and nothing has truly changed – just the method and madness of how we avoid coming back to our true selves.
Thank you for sharing this, I can relate to much at the start and inspired, and reminded about taking responsibility and the changes that can bring. I love what you say with “How is it possible that the natural, tender, beautiful boy I was born, turned into anything but that?” a question I’ve been pondering recently!
Often not considered on any level David – we just turn into a man? No there is much we have to learn and actually distort about ourselves in order to fit the mould that can take it’s place in society. We turn away from that beauty, the tenderness we are to make ourselves fit. Very crazy.
Exactly – although I always wanted to delay turning into a man. Not wanting to leave behind being a kid as being a “man” in my eyes came with a coldness and hardness. You lovingly remind me that none of that is a true man. So in not wanting to grow up to be that typical man I can see I also denied exploring the possibility of such thing as a true man.
Your honesty is very touching Lee, thank you.
This is a super article that shows the changes we can make when we open up to true honesty with ourselves about who we are and how we want to be, thanks Lee.
Agreed Stephen – being honest about how we have chosen to be allows us to start to feel that those choices may not be the best way to support ourselves.
I totally agree Stephen – honesty is that all important first step to truly accepting where we are.
Dear Lee, we all know love and how natural it feels when it is unconditionally presented to us. This knowing never leaves us, we leave it, and your sharing is a true example of you finding your way back to your true self – and how beautiful is the true you. The world is in desperate need of Lee Greens!
Bernadette such a simple line that you have written but oh so powerful ‘This knowing never leaves us, we leave it’.
Thank you Lee for writing this, I myself as a woman wanted to feel that it was ok to have male friends, especially through my teen years, but at the time it never did feel ok because of the sexual tension that accompanied this. Your writing has brought new understanding for me and has prompted me to write a blog about how this has felt for me. Your ability to be so open with your experiences is a ray of light.
Yes Ariana, thank you for calling it out as it is – a lie. And we all have been duped and fed this lie for many, many centuries. It is a shame that what is regarded as normal is so damaging not only to the boy or man, but to all of men and ultimately society. This suggests then that we have a greater lie to unfold.
Fiona I completely agree with what you share.
That’s what I felt so strongly in your blog Lee – what we accept as normal is anything but when we in hindsight look back at our lives after big changes.
I agree Alison, what we accepted as normal is anything but normal when we in hindsight look back. Also that we knew inside it wasn’t normal. We had to go trough a great deal of effort to convince ourselves it was normal. Inside we knew al along the loveless way we treated ourselves was anything but normal, even though others did it as well.
I couldn’t agree more Fiona. Society has been fed this lie for such a long time it’s now time to turn the tables on what true strength and tenderness for men looks like and Lee is a shining example of this.
It’s quite huge when we think of how many are fed and fall for this lie. How much of our society are not living in their truth because of what they have been fed being a man or a woman is.
l agree Monica, to feel how Lee has reclaimed himself by choosing the road less travelled is inspiration for us all.
What you expressed here about the lies men and boys are often raised in made me also consider the lies women and girls are raised in… where we too often grow up believing we have to be all for everybody and be ‘super’ at everything (mum / wife / worker / partner / friend etc. etc.), however this so often happens at the expense of our bodies and also at the denial of our truly precious and sacred selves.
I agree Monica, this example is a great reflection and inspiration of what is possible when men reclaim their natural tenderness and gentleness.
We live in a labyrinth of overlapping lies. Lies upon lies upon lies, woven in and through every single sector of our society. We live them, we breath them and we add to them and so it goes until one day we start to wake up to what’s been going on and slowly we start to pick the lies apart and prise their greasy fingers off of our lives. We will all eventually live lie free but my word it’s going to take a while as currently we are totally and utterly enmeshed in the things, they are everywhere and at every turn, we walk them through our lives.
The lie of the differences between the two sexes herds us away from the truth, whereas the truth of the shared qualities in the two sexes draws us together.
Lee, thank you for your beautiful sharing of your journey to claiming your Self. I can relate because for me, as a female – it was the same scenario. Thank you for your honesty and clear expression.
Karina, amazing point and thank you for sharing – men and women the world over are asked to live in ways that do not support their natural tenderness and beauty, and gender really makes no difference. It is almost as if the world has accepted that this is the way – you go down this road while I will take this path. The light that is each and everyone of us has been dulled over time and with the help of Universal medicine has now an opening to start to shine fully again.
No longer should we accept that as boys and girls we have to grow up choosing abuse of ourselves and others. We can choose to be loving and supportive of all.
Yes this is so true Lee, the light we had as young children gradually gets stamped out as we learn how to survive in an unloving world. Universal Medicine has inspired many to reignite that burning flame that never truly went out so that we can once again feel that freedom and true joy.
So true Samantha, I completely agree.
I agree Lee, Universal Medicine is showing us another way to live, a way that not only supports ourselves but takes into consideration everyone and everything else and in doing so, helping us to reclaim who we truly are.
Great point Karina, the details were different, but as a young girl/teenager/woman there was so much effort put in to ‘mirror’ the boys in order to be seen as attractive. What a silly game we played.
Beautiful post Lee, I love the part “Although there were many times I just wanted someone else to do it for me … I kept taking responsibility”. Truly inspiring… thank you.
Thank you Amber – it is a very tricky lesson to stick with and I did this with the support of Universal Medicine and the many teachings that Serge Benhayon has presented. Responsibility is so simple and yet is not ‘taught’ or even ‘discussed’ in our everyday. Slowly the way that we address things in life will all come back to this point of responsibility for our choices.
What this means for me is learning to take more and more responsibility for all that happens in my life, and understanding that all my choices have consequences. Imagine if we all got to that, wow, can you imagine how awesome it would be?
So true Lee, taking responsibility is a never ending learning. If we were all to look at the areas in our lives where we are not taking responsibility and from there learn to make different choices, rather than staying in our old ways of doing things…. it truly would be amazing, we would live in a very different world.
Once we are willing to look at every aspect of our lives where responsibility is lacking, and be honest about our ills and how we have treated ourselves and others, in my experience it can be life-changing. This leads to the feeling of freedom that Lee so beautifully describes here.
I love this blog and the comments by everyone, truly inspiring. I love what you say here Janet as I’ve recently been starting to feel my lack of responsibility and the consequences of this – it’s as you have said there being a freedom when we admit this – but I connect to it by now seeing the burden I was carrying feeling guilty and ashamed of what I had done to myself and others – and I spent much of my life running from feeling this sadness associated with my choices and fear of being caught out or seen for the bad person I was. I now see this is all crazy and just a game to stay less.
So true Janet, I am working on areas at work and simply being honest about it with myself is supporting an awareness and a choice not to be in the reaction but to stand back to see the bigger picture so that I may be in the appreciation of what i am learning and with those i am working with.
That would be so awesome Lee…. Wowie! Let’s make it happen for ourselves!
HI Lee, I’m just imagining what it would be like if we all took more responsibility for our life, choices and behaviours, there would be a lot less moaning, blaming, carelessness, and more love, support and care…
Totally Monica. Every moment in life is an opportunity to be true and take responsibility for how we each are in life. Life is completely different when each moment is intentionally made about love- I can say this from experience.
l love reading about your experience of taking responsibility Lee. l would welcome more blogs from you that continue to unpack this subject . l feel you have much yet to teach us all.
Funny isn’t it how often we want somebody else who is also not taking responsibility for themselves to take responsibility for us.
Lee, your transformation is absolutely amazing and your honesty is very inspiring. Thank you for sharing so openly what has not worked and was truly awful and thank you for being who you are today.
Thank you Gabriele, with the absolute support of Universal Medicine I have made a transformation. From one who was existing, into a vital living man choosing to live with responsibility and commitment to myself and all others.
Amazing Lee, so truly inspiring.
Absolutely Ryan. Lee’s blog lets us know that real change is possible for anyone at any time.
Lee thank you for sharing how inspiring your life now is, just a normal simple gorgeous life.
What an awesome inspiration you are Lee. The deepest felt words for me are when you say that the, “self-harming choices would come crashing in and tear everything apart – l kept taking responsibility “. l am uplifted by your power and conviction. What a great role model you are for humanity.
Irena I second this. To continue to take responsibility for our choices even when we feel as if the world is caving in. Truly inspiring Lee.
Amazing transformation Lee, and what I loved most is that I can feel that this choice to be you and take more care of yourself is /was not an exclusive one, but that is available and accessible for everyone to choose.
Still loving this blog Lee, I too am a sucker for laying it all out on the table. What I have learnt through my time practising Universal Medicine is that the only true healing comes from total openness and honesty just as you have done above, taking full responsibility for who I am and the choices I have made. It’s always so refreshing to be reminded of this.
I agree Phil, Lee really brings an honesty to what he shares which is inspiring for men like myself who wouldn’t necessarily want to lay themselves bare in this or any other format. That he can share so honestly is extremely helpful in showing me that it is ok to not conform to a way of living that I desperately don’t want, and that sharing our true experiences can actually be a really wonderful thing.
I agree Stephen. Lee has laid out his past so clearly and forensically. There is no emotional charge, no blame of others and no blame of self to be found, just a presentation of the facts and the effect that it had on him.
It is not “airing dirty laundry”, but describing human behaviour. My life was different to Lee’s, staring with the fact that I am a woman! I never did drugs, but I did the things that were equally harming. Abusive relationships, a way of studying that trashed my nervous system as effectively as cocaine…
I can relate my life to Lee’s, and feel his understandings and allow them to ignite my own.
Yes, this is wonderful sharing and it inspires me to the end of the earth.
And it’s deeply healing for everyone when we’re honest. As like a stone thrown into a pool it has a ripple effect. As one person is honest it gives permission for others to be so also and so it goes.
I love this too Phil, it makes us very real and open with nothing to hide or feel ashamed of when we take responsibility for our choices.
I agree, it is so inspiring and many people will be able to relate to Lee’s sharing and be inspired that there is another way, a way to change the cycles and patterns that can seem to have hold of us.