Healing men, and men who heal
A friend calls today. She has a friend, a man, who thinks he might be interested in doing this work. That is, in working. However, he has never received the work.
Oops! That will never fly!
Another colleague a few weeks ago, also a man, told me that he feels his healing gift is with women.
That was in response to my question to him - You don’t work on men? No, he said, just women. I like women, I have something to offer women, a healing and comforting presence.
I said – I’m calling you on that, buddy. That ain’t gonna cut it.
These women on your table – they are there to receive from you right? (yes) and you are there to give to them, right? (yes)
If it is truly giving, then it matters not who is on the other end of your hands. Certainly the gender has nothing to do with it. You have compassion for women but not men? What‘s that about?
If it matters to you who is at the other end of your hands, and you only give to those whose bodies you like, then it’s not really giving. It’s taking. You are taking some pleasure in their woman-ness. Whether their bodies, or their responses, or their appreciation of you, or their emotional vulnerability, or their ‘aha’ moments, or their beautiful sexual selves – you are getting something out of it that has to do with their femaleness.
And do they realize they are giving you this satisfaction? I can tell you that that is not what they signed up for. Not to satisfy you, my dear. They signed up so that you could meet their needs, not so that they could meet yours, no matter how subtle.
So yes, I believe your intentions are good. You want to help them, and I believe you probably do. It may even be true that you have a gift of working with women. But you have no way to know that until you work with men. Until you work with men, your focus on women is just an avoidance of men. After you work with men, then come talk to me about women, and I will listen.
Another thing. Homophobia is just another form of self-hatred. Contrary to what you may feel as a man, men are not awful creatures. They are loving, caring, capable of deep connection and compassion. They are just as deserving of your attention as anyone else. That includes you.
Back to the other man, my friend’s friend.
I will never criticize or guess what his thoughts are. My goodness, I imagine it has crossed many people’s minds, that this work might be interesting – it is!
What I notice gets my dander up is that he has not yet received the work – yet thinks about giving it. Would then, developing the ability to give it be the purpose in receiving it?
That ain’t gonna work either. It’s backwards. In the first place, you can’t give what you don’t have. That’s true on an energetic, spiritual, emotional level. Your greatest asset as a sacred intimate is your own personal development, your inner resource, your compassion for where people get stuck, your ease with places that are hard for others. You can’t do that if it’s still hard for you.
And it’s also true on a skills level. What skills were you thinking of using? Where did you learn them?
So if you can’t give what you don’t have, the way to get it is to receive it for yourself. Not as an agenda to get somewhere else. For yourself. You have to open up and take it into your heart. For you. How else is it going to get in there?
And the second place, even if you had the skills, it doesn’t work by formula. You can’t run everybody through the formula they taught you in school (as if there were a school).
I’ll step off my rant for a moment to acknowledge that this person I have never met was actually asking about training programs. Sadly, what is out there is a very mixed bag. Maybe I’ll start one myself. He did not, to my knowledge, refuse to come get the work himself. So if you happen to read this, my friend’s friend, know that I don’t guess your motives.
What I do know is this, though.
I don’t know a single person, in this work or any other, who does not have some ‘edge’ with their capacity to receive. We all have an edge of comfort. All you have to do to find yours is to slowly and gently move towards it. It’s closer than you think.
And the world’s all time greatest strategy for avoiding it is to occupy yourself with giving instead. It can work for awhile. There is a certain way that giving allows a dribble of receiving to come your way. More accurately, it’s more like – if you get close enough to someone else receiving (the person on your table, or your bed, or in our arms) you get some reflected light, some warmth, that may be just as much as you can stand right now.
That is a common and not altogether bad way to get a taste – except that it is basically dishonest.
If you have a hard time receiving, then get yourself some receiving in small doses. Small doses are just fine, just make sure it really is directly for you, and not reflected off someone else. Then you will be able to gradually increase the dose.
So if you think that perhaps you, too, want to be a sexual healer, then get on the table, and let’s get going.