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
575 Comments
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.
It is great that you found your way through this strong momentum of abusing and numbing yourself so strongly. It asks a lot of loving discipline to get there. The teachings, workshops and healing modalities of Universal Medicine are from great support in those big changes in life.
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.