Michael Burns
MDI Contributor
I started observing and listening to men share our inner and outer worlds in 1986, after I did the Sterling Men’s Weekend intensive. This experience, with 180 male participants I didn’t know, radically changed my relationship with myself as a man, and with men. Ever since then, I have diligently studied and learned about the behavior, motivations, reactions to life experiences of me, men and people.
In 1996 I became a part of the men’s community called East Bay Nation of Men (EBNOM). This network expanded my education of how men ticked, from reading the shares of men in the monthly newsletter, along with physical engagement with them. I naturally added the written thoughts, feelings, opinions, and perspectives that I was eager to share.
A great awareness I got from absorbing our truths is that we are so very similar in many ways: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. The similarities are in how we react and respond to our experiences. I see, hear, and read things that men go through and can say “I know just what you mean,” and they can say the same about what they hear and read in my contributions.
One common thread revealed by most of us is a lack of confidence and a low self esteem that became part of our identity at an early age. This reality isn’t usually evident when casually getting to know someone. It takes a willingness for one to be transparent, to trust, to be coachable, to grow, for theses deeper dispositions to become apparent.
I didn’t recognize that I grew up with this insecure stigma prior to consciously exploring and discovering the accuracy of who I thought I was, and from where this early identity originated. I surely felt that I was less-than, but I surely didn’t understand it, nor knew how to deal with it.
My mom and dad, Rusty and Hank, often gave me valuable feedback on a variety of talents I had as a youth. Too bad that such a recognition didn’t abate the dominant feeling I lived with of “not good enough.”
My favorite skill they lauded was evident in high school: writing. At a back to school night, the renowned English Lit teacher I had, Mr. Killian, told them there is a notable skill in my style of writing. The seed of capability was planted in me to use and refine for the rest of my life, and it helped change my story of incompetent to capable.
I like to do what I am good at, and the more I do it, and get positive feedback, my self image grows from insecure to confident.
I bet some of you can say “I know just what you mean.”