Oh happy Soul Sips on Sunday.
What! Look at my view! Is that not just the most gorgeous! I have so many changes happening today. One, where I am – Northern Ontario so gorgeous right now and two, look, it’s tea. Don’t worry I still drink coffee by I just thought, you know what, I ran into somebody who listens to these videos which – thank you! And she said, I don’t drink coffee, I wish I did! I said oh there’s so many things we can be doing Sunday morning with our time, reflecting inward, and we certainly don’t need coffee. I enjoy tea and I’m trying to drink it more. I really do still love coffee, but you know, you’ve got your thing. We all have our thing.
Today, I’ve actually just written a novel on this topic but I’m not quite ready to discuss it in full. So I just thought maybe I would leave it with you with just a thought. And so, those of you who are parents or if you have a man in your life, or if you’ve ever had a man in your life, that would include your father too. And this lovely saying that has been going around forever and ever and ever and ever. And it is, “boys will be boys” and I have three boys, and I was married and I live with a man now, and I have a very strong father.
“Boys will be boys”. And I enjoy men. Like I have some really great friends that are guys and I like them because their guys. I like how they talk. I like that there’s no bullshit. I like how they are linear, and frankly, that’s how I grew up. I admired the masculine side that eventually came out in me, that I saw in my Dad, that I saw in people, I only saw it in people and in men who I admired. And so, it really, really, dug into me as to who I wanted to be an that’s how I rolled. I rolled with a very strong masculine energy. And the masculine energy is very competitive, very linear, less inward, less touchy feely. When I got out of University, I got a job with the government. And then I made a decision that I wanted to own my own business. I had always wanted to own my own business because that’s what my dad did. And I realized that that was, that was the life I wanted, I wanted to have, and I wanted to be able to work 90 hours a week and get paid for it, and I see those results.
And also, another big part of masculine energy is control. And I wanted that too. But when I got out of the University I worked for the government, and when I decided to leave the government, I remember my mom saying, “Andrea if you leave and start your own business you won’t have a maternity leave”. And I was like what? I’m not having any babies. I’m getting ready to go run a business. I’m going to go start a business and I’m going to go do my thing, and I can work, and I love working, and I know how to do this. I loved working so much that my parents insisted that all of my sisters and I get degrees because they didn’t have University education, so they wanted their daughters to have education. I was not interested in any of this. I was not interested in getting a degree. I didn’t wanna go, I maybe wanted to go to college. I had okay marks in high school, but I was social, I wanted to get out and do, and I had thought some what I wanted to do with my life.
But being that mindset I didn’t question a lot. I challenged things, but I didn’t question things, and that was whether it was Catholicism or whether it was right my parents were saying, and so off I went to University, and I found my fastest way to get through University, and at that time, and I’m not quite sure right now, but at that time I could do it in three years. And I got, basically in and out, with the easiest degree possible or simplest degree in my mind, and I got out, and I started a business on the side. I worked three jobs when I got out of the University and, and then eventually I just got into my own thing.
And what I’m basically saying is that I had this whole drive of masculine energy, and that was the way it was. And now, at the age that I’m at, I’m understanding more and more. As I got through being a mom, I’m still a Mom but when everybody was little, I still had that attitude of pushing everybody through. I was very linear. There was lots of expectations at the time. I remember so many times that we would go to hockey games that their dad was coaching, and they were little, and they were late at night. I hated going to them, but every once in a while, I’m like we should go, and of course they wanted to go, and they’re on school nights. And we would go. But I would, before we get into the car, I would say, look this is your dad’s work, you will behave accordingly. There’ll be no breakdowns, there’ll be no misbehaving or poor behavior. Everybody will sit and da da da da.
I was so caught up in what people thought, what was expected of me, what was expected of my children. God bless those children. The discipline that I put in with those kids. And that was the masculine energy. I didn’t stop, I didn’t stop to like feel, and I didn’t stop. I mean I adored my children but I didn’t stop to, you know, if they had their complaints or their struggles or whatever, it was like, no no no giddy up, get going, or I would come in and fix it. And that’s another component of the masculine energy, and sometimes it takes awhile for us to step into that feminine energy. Some of you guys grew up with it and you embraced it. I didn’t, I didn’t at all. And I didn’t embrace it until I was literally hit by a Mack truck a gazillion times, for me to realize, like I needed to stop, and listen to my voice, my gut, what really was driving me, and what did I really want to do with this beautiful curious life out there.
And then I had to let a lot of that go, but in the meantime, I had raised, boys who will be boys. Right? They’re out there, they’re misbehaving, they’re throwing sand, they’re hitting each other. How but on the ice? You know, just and how tough we had to be with the kids, and the discipline. Hockey alone is enough to personally make me crazy about was what was expected, and feelings and emotions were just not allowed. You just aren’t allowed, you just had to be tough, you just had to suck it up.
And you know, all the way to the point that you know, when my daughter would get her period and she wouldn’t be feeling well, I’d say “just suck it up, go for a run, that will make you feel better”. You know like totally out to lunch I was. Just out to lunch on how to respect where people are at, how to live gracefully with your intuition, and feelings, and desires and going against the grain.
Boys will be boys is something that has been a way to just kind of nudge in, not only that boys are allowed to behave a certain way, boys are also not allowed to behave with another way, such as vulnerable, such as men don’t cry, such as kindness, lovingness, tenderness. Right? It’s shunned. It’s shamed. And I think this is what I want to speak to, and what I’m ready to speak to right now, is this whole thing with “boys will be boys”. We’re humans. Women, as much as we might naturally be nurtures, men are nurtures, they’ve just been told they’re not. My ex husband is a wonderful nurturer towards his children. When they were little, he was fantastic. My partner is a wonderful man and a wonderful kind, intuitive, open non-judgemental person, that I’ve learnt from.
Men, women, boys, girls, I just really think it’s time we start changing our stories. And even though we grew up this way, even though maybe we’ve raised our children this way, it doesn’t mean we can’t change, we can’t change our story, we can’t, it doesn’t mean that we can’t, look at life differently. Just because we’ve always done something one way doesn’t mean that we have to continue. Listening to our voice, being loving, kind, respectful because we know it feels right. Slowing ourselves down, teaching our children, teaching those boys, teaching those girls. Or even better, showing them, showing them, how we stand with strength, with power and who we are, with encouragement for them to listen to their voice. For men or boys to be vulnerable, to hug, to love, to cry.
Let’s lead them. Let’s lead them. We get to change our story. We get to change our parent’s story third story and our grandparent’s story. And we get to be a big part their amazingness, and it might be different than ours. Wouldn’t that be great if they can figure it out now instead of when we did. Strive, strive, to be that amazing human you are put on this earth to be.
And for God sakes be contagious!
Happy Sunday!