Earlier this week I published my initial thoughts on this book by John Eldredge. I want to share a few more quotes and respond.
“A hesitant man is the last thing in the world a woman needs. She needs a lover and a warrior, not a Really Nice Guy.”
I felt the barb from this quote as I was renown in high school as the “honest nice guy”. I wouldn’t let the cool kids copy my work. I still remember turning down a pretty girl and feeling so frustrated that she was ethically compromised.
A couple years later, my best friends were the two most popular rebels from our high school and I was the nice guy their girlfriends would turn to for advice and insight, wondering whether their guys were faithful.
Lots of girls flirted with those two guys. And absolutely no girls were beating down my door at the time.
From an early age, women respond to strength, confidence, and decisiveness, even when it’s fake. There’s safety and security in a relationship with a man who knows his purpose and believes he can get there. That strength of conviction and courage to face insurmountable odds elicits admiration and respect.
A hesitant man, on the other hand, demonstrates fear and weakness to a woman. He’s not reliable, because he could change his mind or turn and run when it gets tough.
Nice, passive, hesitant guys fail to project safety and security. Women notice. How many times has the nice guy in a group been relegated to the friend zone?
“A wound that goes unacknowledged and unwept is a wound that cannot heal.”
Whatever we hide, we empower. That’s a phrase that has stuck with me my entire adult life. If I can’t expose it to the light, it controls me. I am bound.
“Unwept” is a powerful term. I’m not even sure it’s a real word, but the meaning is clear. How many men have never wept for a wound because they felt they weren’t allowed to have a need? Men feel compelled to project strength. It’s expected of a man to handle his business regardless.
And when we don’t practice expressing our pain, our grief, and truly mourn, we bottle up the pain inside and it festers like a cancer. Unwept wounds kill a man’s soul.
This ties in to another book I’m reading that I’ll share with you soon. It’s called Validation, by Carolyn Fleck, PhD.
In the first chapter, she talks about acceptance as a necessary step to change. It sounds counterintuitive, since we think acceptance leads to identity building and worldview shaping. But really, we’re talking about validating pain.
If you can’t weep for your wounds, you likely haven’t validated them. The live rent-free in your body, wreaking havoc on your nervous system and cellular biology.
To heal, you must first validate the pain is real and it is worthy of being addressed (rather than stuffed away). Then you can weep for yourself, or the child within. Once you have allowed self to process the pain, you can move forward and address the issue of what to do next.
It’s life-changing to experience grieving for the first time without hiding or shame. You’re just a person who feels things. And it’s okay.
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive, because what the world needs are men who have come alive.”
I’m still debating what to do with this quote. It actually flies directly in the face of another quote I’ve heard and followed regarding one’s life purpose.
The OTHER advice was to ask yourself “What is the thing you are skilled to do that the world needs? That is your purpose.”
Eldredge says no, what makes you come alive? The world needs men who are alive with passion and purpose and who are fueled and motivated to do the work before them. That life gives life to others.
I think the other quote gives men a starting point when they feel lost, and I think Eldredge tells men further down the road not to settle for just any old problem solving.
That’s it for me on this one. If you want to discuss a different topic from the book, let me know.
