#99949
I stood this morning at Clareinch post office surrounded by grief and anger and helplessness and eighty good men. The photographers clicked away as if we had somehow done something to change the situation that South Africa faces with its gender-based violence. I don’t think we did. But we can.
I chose to feel everything as I stood in the wall of flowers and placards espousing a range of anger and determination and now, as I want to start my working day, I can’t. I want to go back to bed and hide under the duvet of despair that has engulfed me.
As a therapist I am trained to track when a feeling comes over me suddenly. It is therapeutically useful to know when I’m being affected by the mood of my client and a sudden change in inner atmosphere tells me that something bigger than me is happening.
I woke up without difficulty this morning. I was not feeling despair or helplessness. I meditated and my heart and mind felt clear. Now I feel heavy. Slow. Sluggish. Lethargic. Helpless.
These are not my feelings.
More accurately, they are not mine alone.
They are the feelings embedded in the wall of grief that I stood in today. They are the feeling of millions of South Africans who have directed their pain towards the Clareinch post office.
You cannot stand at the epicenter of a ton of pain,
without it running through your own body-mind system.
Desmond Tutu taught us that it is our job to transmute this pain. To allow it to be felt so fully that it is seen and heard. This pain has been hiding below the surface for too long and it cannot be ignored a minute longer. That it took the tragic death of Uyinene to bring it to the surface is unfortunate, but it’s also very human nature that we only address what is simmering beneath the surface after it erupts. Uyinene’s death has become the inciting incident driving us to action. It has become the motivator and mobiliser of mass action. Action that has long been needed.
Many of the men who gathered this morning to stand for 9 minutes at 9 a.m. on the 9th of September (#99949) were men from The Mankind Project. They are men who have chosen to look at their psychological history and do the work of defining their personal mission. They are men who have chosen integrity and agree to be held accountable by other men in their community. These are men who are already working on being safe men. Kind men. Men of integrity.
The children of these men are already learning a language of accountability because they have fathers who model these behaviours and choose time and again for peaceful, powerful, clear, heart-centred language.
I am 100% sure that the perpetrators of these crimes against women do not have fathers who model these actions. They do not have communities who hold them accountable to values of kindness, authenticity or personal power. They do not get lifted up as boys or set on a path towards becoming men of integrity.
The question I have is “how do we change that?”
How do we make it aspirational for our young boys to want to be like these good men? What media can we use to show the beauty of being a good man so that young boys choose to copy the behaviours of good men because it is ‘cool’, it ‘feels good’ and it gets them the love that they crave.
Todays’ action of standing for 9 minutes has stirred me. Tomorrow when I am reading stories to boys at the local prep school I will be looking deeper into the hearts of the boys in front of me. I will be lifting them up. Seeing their beauty, modelling my integrity and holding clear boundaries for them. I will continue what I have dedicated my life to — creating safety and belonging for all children — knowing that my personal mission sets the path towards the world that I want. A safe and loving world.
I don’t think we’ve changed the situation, but we can. Now is the time.
Resources for men:
The Mankind Project : http://mkp.org.za/public/
Resources for Parents: www.consciousstories.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Andrew Newman is an internationally-renowned and award-winning author and founder of Conscious Bedtime Story Club, a growing series of bedtime stories purpose-built to support parent-child connection in the last 20 minutes of the day. His early and profound longing for connection with all things spiritual later inspired a career in writing and communication in many forms, including healing work with Dr. Barbara Brennan, motivational speaking, counseling, and publishing over 2500 donated poems as the PoemCatcher, a work that later benefited the victims of the 2010 Haitian earthquake.
Newman served as volunteer coordinator for Habitat for Humanity in multiple townships in South Africa, directed Edinburgh’s Festival of Spirituality and Peace, and has been actively involved since 2006 in the Mankind Project. He was an opening speaker for Deepak Chopra, a Tedx presenter in Findhorn, Scotland, an author-in-residence at the Bixby School in Boulder, Colorado, and a resident storyteller at the Conscious Discipline Elevate Conference, hosted by Dr. Becky Bailey.
Today Newman balances the worlds of entrepreneur and teacher, creating a healthy mission-aligned business that serves the world on a personal, local and global scale and supporting the essential goal of global oneness and Oneness consciousness. A recognized voice in the conscious parenting movement, his latest project, The Conscious Bedtime Story Club, is a culmination of his background, experiences, and humanitarian efforts, and is intended to bring parent and child into deeper connection and spiritual union with each other. Visit www.consciousstories.com to learn more.
View his TEDx “Why the last 20 Minutes of the day matter” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfcZhlK-FAU&t=2s
