Healing the Generational Trauma of Men
Many men carry the weight of generational trauma. It shows up as avoidance of deeper pain, disconnecting from emotions, and not living from our true masculine core. Man’s history of warfare and the conditioning we've received about being stoic and emotionless have a large part to play.
To heal, men need to own their issues, face their wounds head-on, acknowledge the pain, and make healing our main focus.
If we don’t, we risk remaining stuck in emotional reactivity and disconnection. We’ll struggle in relationships, unable to feel love or be present with our partners, creating more pain and insecurity for us and those we care about.
In this episode, Lorin offers an explanation of the generational trauma carried by men, how men can work through it, and how women can support this work.
Mentioned in this episode:
Healing Your Attachment Style
Create deeper relationships and more abundance
Transcript
In today's episode, I will dive deep into healing the generational trauma of men.
Speaker:I will share about it in a way you've most likely never heard about it before.
Speaker:How it manifests, especially in relationship with women in a practical and laser-focused way.
Speaker:I will go into this today.
Speaker:I will also share with you how you as a woman can support us men in our journey of healing this, and for us men, what are the most powerful methods of truly starting to tackle this?
Speaker:Welcome to the Masculine and Feminine Dynamics podcast.
Speaker:My name is Lorin Krenn, and I'm a coach, author, and hypnotherapist.
Speaker:I help you to understand masculine and feminine dynamics.
Speaker:Let's dive in.
Speaker:The generational trauma of the masculine can be summed up in one word, avoidance.
Speaker:Avoidance of facing the deeper underlying pain, and unconsciously finding ways to run and escape.
Speaker:To avoid this pain.
Speaker:Where does this come from?
Speaker:Very quickly before I get practical in how it shows up in today's world, the one constant in history is what?
Speaker:Warfare and these wars continue In today's world.
Speaker:Throughout these wars, there has been so much trauma.
Speaker:Of course for women as well, but in today's episode, for the men, men had to go to war, men had to kill.
Speaker:And out of this unnatural response to this is a shutdown within.
Speaker:It is a disconnect with the heart.
Speaker:Out of this is also born overly being stuck in the heads from a place of logic, detached from emotion as it becomes a survival mechanism, as it becomes a way to protect ourselves from this deeper shame and guilt and pain and whatever the underlying core emotion is.
Speaker:And as I've mentioned many times before, generational trauma is of course passed down from generation to generation.
Speaker:And the sons of the fathers who went to war and who shut down their emotions, that is being passed down on them.
Speaker:And of course, the pain they experienced with their own father and his lack of being a healthy masculine role model due to his pain and avoidance.
Speaker:This sense of avoidance is being passed down.
Speaker:And often as sons, we see our father operating from this energy of having unresolved emotions, being emotionally reactive, not being able to truly face these deeper emotions with him, and to live from his true place of power from his healthy masculine core.
Speaker:This creates a set of challenges and this avoidance and describe from the heart is it, this from the body creates specific challenges and I will now go laser focused into each one of them.
Speaker:Challenge number one is to feel love.
Speaker:Because of this avoidance, when we avoid the deeper pain, then we're simultaneously being disconnected from the deeper love, the deeper power within us.
Speaker:That's where the saying comes, the only way through is into the wound, is to enter the wound.
Speaker:Because the moment we're avoiding the wound, the moment we're avoiding a deeper pain, we're also ultimately disconnecting and avoiding our true power.
Speaker:We're escaping not just from our pain, we're escaping from our true power, from our healthy masculine core.
Speaker:And now this specific challenge is to receive love.
Speaker:So many men, even if they're in a relationship with a woman who genuinely, truthfully loves them, who is conscious, they feel empty within.
Speaker:No matter how much love she pours into the relationship, there's a deep sense of unworthiness and emptiness within, that comes from this generational trauma, that comes from this place of avoiding the deeper pain and constantly unconsciously escaping it in all kinds of different forms and outlets.
Speaker:And this difficulty to receive love means a man feels empty in the relationship.
Speaker:And from this place of emptiness and unworthiness, he cannot show up fully.
Speaker:He cannot be truly present.
Speaker:He cannot truly express love.
Speaker:Also, because there is such a disconnect from the heart, such a dis from the body, from a generational trauma, there is also an inability to truly feel the feminine heart, which means to feel her true desires.
Speaker:It doesn't matter what a woman says to us logically, what she wants from us, what she truly wants from us is our heart, is our presence, is our truth, is our healthy masculine core.
Speaker:So this is why women, when they say, I don't feel him, he's, I'm in a relationship with him, but I don't really feel him, it's because she feels us disconnected from our true power.
Speaker:And out of this, so much pain is born.
Speaker:And of course, another aspect of the generational trauma is not just the avoidance and the warfare and the survival mechanisms, it's also all the conditioning that men have received about what it means to be a man.
Speaker:Be stoic, be detached from any emotion, don't cry, don't be vulnerable.
Speaker:All these things that have been passed down onto us.
Speaker:Which of course were an expression of this deep rooted trauma and finding ways of masking it, finding ways of numbing it.
Speaker:As long as a man cannot receive love fully in a relationship, he cannot show up fully.
Speaker:As long as we as men cannot feel the feminine heart, we actually cannot really be present with her.
Speaker:We actually cannot give her what she really needs.
Speaker:All she needs is our heart, but simple does not mean it is easy to get to this place of simplicity where we are truly rooted in our heart or we can feel her and in that moment, meet her with our masculine depth, with our deepest sense of presence.
Speaker:That's a hard journey to get to this place where this unfolds then naturally and effortlessly.
Speaker:Challenge number two is emotional reactivity.
Speaker:So many men get immensely triggered when they're in relationship with a woman, and what happens is that any emotion she brings to the relationship or when emotions are high in a moment of tension, it triggers the unresolved emotions within us that we are unconsciously trying to avoid because of our generational trauma.
Speaker:And then what happens is, instead of being able to own this and acknowledge this and to be radically honest with ourselves, we project it onto her and, and unconsciously make her the reason why we are feeling this way.
Speaker:Our shadow wants us to see her as the threat, as the enemy.
Speaker:And now we start to treat her as that.
Speaker:As we start to resist her, we project our unresolved pain onto her, rather than being able to own it in that moment and to truly face ourselves.
Speaker:And this of course, creates immense unsafety.
Speaker:It creates immense emotional volatility in the relationship.
Speaker:And we are not trustworthy, we are not reliable as men because what we're ultimately saying is, I cannot protect you from my unresolved wounding.
Speaker:So a big part of protection is not just physical protection, but it's that emotional and spiritual protection from our own wounding, from our own pain.
Speaker:I always say the highest art of protecting a woman is to protect her from our own shadow and unresolved wounding.
Speaker:So this is the, the one side of emotional reactivity is that she triggers, through her emotional experience of bringing emotions, just bringing her emotions, which are natural and healthy into the relationship, it triggers the deep, unresolved emotions within us.
Speaker:But remember, she can only expose what is already there within us.
Speaker:Should she do something that crosses our boundaries, then you wouldn't necessarily become highly emotionally reactive and blow apart like a bomb.
Speaker:Instead from a grounded, but from a conscious and fiercely loving place, you can simply express your boundary and express your needs and communicate effectively in that moment rather than everything spinning into the world of total emotional volatility and, and lashing out on her or projecting, unresolved wounding onto her.
Speaker:So this immense emotional reactivity and, and projecting onto her is almost always a surefire sign that we are coming from a place of generational trauma.
Speaker:We're trying to avoid something that we're feeling right now.
Speaker:What are we avoiding?
Speaker:We're avoiding deeper pain that is rising under the surface.
Speaker:And most likely this pain has nothing to do with her.
Speaker:This pain is our own unworthiness.
Speaker:And until we are radically honest with ourselves and start to face this, we'll continue to make this about her.
Speaker:But in truth, it's most often about the generational trauma that we have inherited from our father, from his father, and continuing into the past.
Speaker:Now, the other way this emotional reactivity, which leads us to challenge number three is a lack of ownership.
Speaker:Because out of this emotional reactivity, what is born is defensiveness, the need to be right, the need to prove to her that she's wrong.
Speaker:Where this comes from is trying to not appear weak, trying to not appear like a failure.
Speaker:Part of the heavy conditioning that we have received as man, the conditioning we have received is you are not allowed to make a mistake.
Speaker:You are not allowed to have shortcomings.
Speaker:You are not allowed to be wrong because all that means you are weak, you are a failure.
Speaker:And of course, that's a deeply, deeply ingrained, limiting belief that creates so much pain.
Speaker:So even though you might have heard this, understand conceptually admitting something or acknowledging your own responsibility in something or owning something is strength, there is a deeper part within us through this conditioning we have received and this generational trauma that believes that the moment we are wrong is the moment we are weak and we are worthless, and we are a failure.
Speaker:So we make this about our own unworthiness rather than being able in that moment to effectively communicate, to truly own our part, and to create safety.
Speaker:It becomes this bigger, deeper wounded story of the little boy within us who doesn't feel safe, who doesn't feel worthy.
Speaker:And this lack of ownership creates so much pain because it's one thing if we are not perfect, because no one is perfect.
Speaker:It is even the most awakened man has his areas that he's still working on.
Speaker:We're always healing.
Speaker:We're always working on certain things.
Speaker:We can always improve in certain areas, and we all have our challenges.
Speaker:But the difference is that the awakened man or a man who has reached a certain level of consciousness, he's able to own something.
Speaker:Rather than make it about his in little boy story, within that, he's not good enough, that's a wound that's being projected onto her, which creates so much pain.
Speaker:Because the moment we're able to own something fully acknowledge something, is the moment we restore safety.
Speaker:We restore trust with the feminine.
Speaker:The moment we restore safety and trust, what happens?
Speaker:Connection, intimacy, love naturally starts to flow once more.
Speaker:Remember, you are much stronger by owning something than when you are defending yourself.
Speaker:The moment you are debating her, trying to prove to her you are wrong and you are being too intense, and you are being this, you are coming from a place of wounding In that moment.
Speaker:Defensiveness also pushes her away and makes her feeling invalidated and not safe.
Speaker:Now, these are the three key ways.
Speaker:There are other ways, but I won't have enough time in today's episode to dive into that.
Speaker:But these are some of the key ways how this manifests.
Speaker:Now, let's go into how women can support us men, how you as a woman can support us men from an aligned place in healing our generational trauma.
Speaker:The key thing I'm going to give you here to make this really practical is two things in communication.
Speaker:Number one.
Speaker:One thing you can say to us in a moment of challenge when you are not happy with something or don't feel that your heart is being met, you can say when I tell you that I'm upset about something or that I really didn't like about this thing that you did, it doesn't mean I don't love you.
Speaker:It doesn't mean I don't think you're a good man.
Speaker:All it means is that you did X, Y, and Z, and it made me feel that way.
Speaker:Here.
Speaker:I know this might sound a little bit like, oh, you have to now sugarcoat, I will never say the feminist to sugarcoat and change how she speaks, but by saying this to a man, by reminding us men that when you express a sense of upset with something or something that doesn't make you feel safe, by reminding us that it still means that you love us, it truly relaxes a deeper part within our heart.
Speaker:It softens and relaxes our heart.
Speaker:It relaxes our nervous system.
Speaker:It nourishes and nurtures our entire being.
Speaker:Because our generational trauma makes us interpret you in a way that the moment you come with an upset or with something that's upsetting you, it's like, oh, I'm a failure, and now I need to defend myself.
Speaker:Now I need to try whatever I can do to not feel this pain of being a failure of being unworthy.
Speaker:And when you remind us of that, that's truly a gift.
Speaker:The times my wife said to me, baby, I love you.
Speaker:I know you are a good man, but you know, this thing that you did, it made me feel really unsafe.
Speaker:And I just need to share that with you because that's really important to me.
Speaker:And now in that moment, of course, you cannot control how another person responds to you, but if this is a man who is willing to go deep, who is willing to face himself, he will be able to receive this at a much deeper level.
Speaker:And this goes a long way with us men.
Speaker:So the reason why I say supporting us in an aligned way is because you are still sharing how you feel and what you need.
Speaker:You are not giving in to our shadow.
Speaker:You are not suppressing your voice, which is part of your generation trauma.
Speaker:I've done an episode about this only recently, but you see, you are still sharing, but this, this extra thing that you mentioned, this reminder allows us to receive you at a much deeper level.
Speaker:And the other thing is where you place your focus when you express your upset.
Speaker:So when you put your focus on we make you feel unsafe, we are selfish.
Speaker:Then it becomes about our character, which again triggers generational trauma.
Speaker:Rather make it about the action.
Speaker:When you put the focus on the action, there's a much higher chance for a man to receive you.
Speaker:And for us, when it's about the action, our protector instinct comes alive or there's a higher chance for it to awaken.
Speaker:We want to protect you from our unconscious behavior, but how can we protect you from ourselves?
Speaker:It's a very, very subtle distinction, but it's a complete game changer in relationships.
Speaker:The couples and women, I've taught this, and when I hear from the men how they feel, like how this feels also in my nervous system, I experience this with my wife, She communicates with me in this way, it truly opens my heart.
Speaker:Now, practical steps for us men that we can take to truly start healing alteration trauma.
Speaker:The first step is to take full ownership without ownership and acknowledging that there is something that is holding us back without directing our full focus and energy there, we will continue to avoid it.
Speaker:This is not something we need to, we can do on the side or brush aside or here and there think about.
Speaker:It has to be the main focus.
Speaker:It has to be the highest priority to tackle the ways that generational trauma manifests, especially in relationship.
Speaker:Otherwise, we will create so much pain and safety and we'll show up in a way that is not true to who we truly are.
Speaker:So the first step is ownership, because when you truly take ownership and really start to put your focus on something, make it your highest priority, then your energy starts to go there.
Speaker:And when your energy starts to go there, you are able to transform it.
Speaker:From this place of truly taking ownership.
Speaker:This is a deep decision only you make inside yourself, you will continue to suffer and suffer and suffer until you make this choice.
Speaker:You don't need to allow it to force you to do it to, when you hit rock bottom.
Speaker:Is it too late?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:But ideally you make this choice earlier before everything falls apart because then you are forced to do it.
Speaker:Ideally, you willingly go there before you are forced to do it.
Speaker:The next step is to reconnect with your body.
Speaker:How you do this is by bringing your awareness into your body, into your heart.
Speaker:So one of the most powerful ways to reconnect with our body and heart is through the breath.
Speaker:But be mindful, just doing breathing exercises.
Speaker:You can still be disassociated, you can still be not in your body and doing some breath work exercises.
Speaker:This will not have the desired effect, specifically for those men who are so stuck in their head, which was me.
Speaker:That's something I had, I did so much breathing exercises, but at the same time, I noticed that I wasn't fully present with it.
Speaker:When I became fully present with the breath, then it brings you into the body.
Speaker:So it's the awareness, the conscious awareness of your breath that guides your energy back into the body.
Speaker:Let's do this for a moment.
Speaker:I invite you to bring your awareness into your lower belly.
Speaker:And now breathe through your nostrils for around eight seconds deeply, all the way into your lower belly.
Speaker:Expand the lower belly and truly feel this breath.
Speaker:And then eight second exhale, bring it a towards the spine on the exhale.
Speaker:One conscious breath is more powerful than 30 minutes of breath work while being completely stuck in your head..
Speaker:Of course you can practice more, but the key is that you are fully present with the breath, as only then will the breath guide you back into the body, into your heart, into your true center.
Speaker:I invite you to.
Speaker:set several reminders and to do this several times throughout the day.
Speaker:It's much more efficient to do this several times for a short amount of time, consistently, rather than once a week to a three hour intense breath work session.
Speaker:If you want to do really long breath work, amazing, right?
Speaker:Do it.
Speaker:I've done it.
Speaker:I do it myself.
Speaker:I've done this for many, many years now.
Speaker:Um, but you don't have to.
Speaker:You don't have to go to an extreme and become a monk, a full-time monk.
Speaker:Now, this is how you start this journey.
Speaker:Of course, I go deeper into this in my men's groups and in my men's programs.
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