No one or thing is going to absolve you from loneliness or pain. Your healing is your responsibility. The alleyways of childhood do not release us willingly, so we have to develop the tools to release those ghosts and slay those dragons.
But here's the rub:
Many of us grew up modeling an outdated version of Masculinity; one that was rooted in everything from ancestral traumas and emotional repression, to fear or scarcity mindset and absence of personal accountability. As a result, many of us learned to navigate the depths of the wilderness alone, taking false pride in some individual notion of power or strength. It served some of us for a while. Despite not having a compass or a map, some of us found our way out of the woods and back to the pack. Some of us finally came to accept that The Age of the Lone Wolf is Dead.
Our lives are not are own. They do not just belong to us. We can be fathers and brothers and leaders and caretakers, or we can be Ghosts.
When we can deal with trauma and the daunting notion of our Jungian Shadow Self, we can begin to open up to new possibilities. We can begin to rebuild trust. We can begin to feel worthy of love and find the strength to give the love we never had.
The most difficult part of the process is learning to admit where your trauma and your lone wolf survival instincts (including your tendency to isolate) have hurt others. Accepting responsibility is a heavy thing and facing it, head on, takes the kind of courage that is only sustainable when you have the support and love and accountability that comes with returning to the Pack.
Past victimhood, even of the most brutal variety, does not absolve you from the responsibility of your actions.. But we must first navigate of the darkness and back into the light of the pack; So that we may see.
May this be the season we leave the wilderness and rejoin the pack.
