The Challenge for Men to Connect with their Souls

And the repercussions of this arrested development

This was part of this week’s conversation on Elise Loehnen’s podcast, Pulling the Thread, titled “On Finding Our Soul's Vocation” with her guest James Hollis, PhD. Loehnen and Hollis discussed how the understanding of what it means to be a man is up for grabs. Hollis talked about how women, challenging the cultural construction of our gender, are entering into more spheres of education and vocation (even as this is still a challenge), expanding the conception of womanhood, but that for men the basic definitions are pretty much the same: be competitive, climb the ladder, achieve success, stay “rational,” “linear.” Many men “arrive” at the top of their expectations and “realize there is no there there.” He says that inwardly, many men are separate from their own souls.

Many are missing the inner life of purpose, personal meaning, depth, dignity, beauty, and direction. Hollis says,

“For only a few has it occurred that the great venture of our time is the exploration inwardly. If you think there are difficulties out there, start really dealing with your own complexities within and the mixture of voices that are going on at any given moment, and start struggling with that. And then you have a true adventure.”

The goal-driven ambition men are taught to pursue is often at the price of their own soul.

Women are thinking, naming, and talking about the difficulties of our sex, but men rarely discuss what they find difficult about being a man. And this is an important question to address. Another big question he likes to ask men is, “When did you shut down?” Hollis said that for many males, it’s between the ages of 5 and 6. The savage life of the playground teaches boys early to shut down their inner life, sensitivity, intuition, and need for intimacy to avoid fear, shame, and humiliation. But these are not only feminine traits.

He then likes to ask, “What quickens your soul?” What makes you come alive? What stirs you?

It’s not that men don’t talk to their friends. But so often it is about sports, work, and politics and very little about what is going on inside themselves. Hollis says that men often need permission to examine their inner life. They neglect their souls. “There is something inside of each of you that knows you better than you know yourself…seeking to heal your wounds and get some purpose and direction.” What a wonder!

When this is neglected, Hollis says men are at risk of following a charismatic figure that may lead them over a cliff. Where do we even begin with examples of this in the church and secular world?

What we do not address, we put on others. We don’t even see it. This certainly isn’t only a male problem, but it was interesting to hear about the difficulties for the male sex to be in tune with their own souls. Maybe it helps to hear that when you begin to do this work, you lift that burden off of others that you are unknowingly projecting on them.

I was particularly engaged with this discussion after the events that happened online for me this week. Like a regular proud mom, I posted some pictures on Facebook of my son who is away at college. For fun, he auditioned to model at a fashion show that was coming to his downtown area and he was selected. He looked great and I posted a few of the photos from the event. The next thing I know, people (including pastors) grabbed screen shots of it and went to X, posting things like:

The OPC is full of men without chests. At root they've got too much of this in them to ever have rebuked Aimee Byrd, which could have saved her soul and her children. And who knows where Byrd's husband is at. So sad, but also so wicked.

Mom acts like a man. No surprise her son acts like a woman.

Oh, did I mention that my son has long hair? And he’s an artist? He is double majoring in psychology and art and wants to specialize in art therapy. He’s amazing. He’s not one of those who is ashamed to be in touch with his inner life. Being called feminine isn’t an insult to him because a) he doesn’t hate women, and b) his masculinity isn’t that fragile. He knows masculinity isn’t about hair length, bravado, or insulting people. He knows that the actual “men without chests” are these hollow brains and bodies who are disconnected from their souls, stuck in arrested development, still the boys who were hurt on the playground, shut down.

And just for the record, my son also has an adult blue belt in Brazilian Jujitsu and could probably do some damage to some of these fools hiding behind their computers shaming our family. Not that he would, that is just my own shadow flexing itself. They don’t know my son. They don’t know themselves. These comments are the epitome of what Hollis is teaching.

The whole thing sickened me. I couldn’t believe the number of people participating. They took something beautiful and tried to destroy it. I have to wonder who wounded them so badly. I grieve that I ever exposed my children to a church culture that enables this abusive, childish, hateful behavior.

And I am sad for them. But also angry that Jesus’s name would be associated with this kind of utter grossness. Which reminds me that when we are connected with our souls, we are connected with Jesus because that is where his Holy Spirit is dwelling. I wrote about a year ago that in a sense, heaven is somehow intertwined in our own bodies. Our souls house God.

This is the hook Teresa of Avila uses in, The Interior Castle, a book on prayer, helping men and women for hundreds of years to commune with God:

“For reflecting upon it carefully, Sisters, we realize that the soul of the just person is nothing else but a paradise where the Lord says he finds his delight. So then, what do you think that abode will be like where a King so powerful, so wise, so pure, so full of all good things takes his delight? I don’t find anything comparable to the magnificent beauty of a soul and its marvelous capacity.”

Do we think of our souls this way? And of believers around us? Paradise? Heaven? Where the Lord finds delight? How would it transform our lives if we meditate on this more? How would we speak of one another, then?

And, is this more difficult for men? How can we help them come alive?