Spring theme 2012

COMEGA # 39

Men: Love and Vulnerability

Men want to love; we want to be loved. Love brings us joy, creativity, companionship, family, commitment, hope, sharing life’s joys and sorrows, personal growth. We love spouses, friends, children, parents, a Higher Power.

We, as men, were taught to be strong, competent and self-reliant. Showing weakness, incompetence and dependence threatens our success in the world. So we grew up hiding these aspects of ourselves because to show them would make us vulnerable (at a disadvantage) in the competitive world of today.

Now we are men in the world. We know that truth is the key to a loving relationship. We understand that we cannot ask someone to trust us if we do not permit them to see all of us: our weaknesses, warts, doubts, fears, needs, and the places we lack competence. The Catch-22 is that we hold a deep-seated fear that if we let another person see all of us they will not love us. So, we hide ourselves, we lie about who we are in order to gain love. Yet, because honesty is essential to love, we actually withhold our love by lying about who we are. The pathetic truth is that we sabotage our love in order to maintain our love.

To love is to be vulnerable. In men’s support groups, men can feel safe enough to be vulnerable ... to honestly share their lives and still be accepted as honest and good and worthy. In the safe fellowship of COMEGA, a man can be completely honest about his life, his doubts, his feelings.

At the 39th COMEGA we will explore our willingness to be vulnerable. We will examine our loving relationships in terms of our honesty. We will look at who we are in the world. When do we permit ourselves to be vulnerable? With whom? We men demand a high degree of safety before we show vulnerability. It takes a truly strong person to be vulnerable. What do we hide? Why do we hide? In what ways do we feel weak, incompetent, dependent? What doubts do we have that we do not share? Do we feel connected or disconnected in our daily lives? Does hiding these fears connect us or disconnect us from others? Where can we find the personal strength to be vulnerable?

There will be time for us to share who we honestly are. What is intimacy except sharing our whole self with another? At this COMEGA we turn the mirror to look at ourselves.