James Ballantyne

Tag: empathy

  • Male Sensitivity : Part 1 (Realising my own)

    Toughen up

    You need to stand up for yourself

    Wimp

    You’re being sensitive

    Softy

    Pussyfoot

    And the ultimate..

    Stop being so Gay. 

    All words Ive heard in my life, some at school, some in places that were meant to be ‘home’. 

    What did all of these words and names mean?  What did they do? What did they communicate as to what is valued. 

    Especially for me, a Man, A boy, A teenager. 

    What about the following: 

    ‘You need to have a ‘thick skin’ to work here. Or to be a ____________ nowadays.

    And ‘that’ profession, it seems strange to say this about a profession that on the face of it should care about people, clergy, teaching, nursing, social work.. 

    What is being valued here?  What does this say about our society? 

    Who is this all in favour of? What is being left out? 

    Shall I be honest with you?

    Ive struggled to write this piece.

    Yet, as you know, ive been able to, or found it ‘easy to’ write about other aspects of my self realisation and awareness journey in the last few years. Including Abuse. Ive come back to the subject of sensitivity in the last month or so. Rereading Elaine Aruns book that I read for the first time 3 years ago, rereading it 3 weeks ago was like new pings going off all over the place, new pieces of my personal jigsaw making more sense, more realisation of how my childhood, schooling and subsequent has been affected by not being able to have my sensitivity valued, though not being able to know or communicate this. 

    Its as if I fear that admitting being sensitive is weak. 

    Its as if I then put myself in the ‘snowflake’ ‘woke’ or ‘wooly liberal’ category. 

    Its as if I then be vulnerable. 

    But what if? 

    I am Sensitive. 

    I am Male, and I am Sensitive.

    And it’s been a strength that ive had to hide. But it’s been there, I can tell.

    And I always have been. It was what to need to be to survive. And not just me.

    It wouldn’t have mattered to retort ‘ no im not gay, im just sensitive’ wouldn’t have helped in the playground. Standing up for bullies hasn’t been about punching my way back, but reporting to the right people. (And then I got bullied for being a ‘tell tale’… honestly.. what is the right thing?) 

    As I read the book ‘The Highly sensitive person’ by Elaine Arun and ‘Sensitive’ (2023) by Hannah Jane Walker, who writes from current research into sensitivity, and in conversation with researchers and psychologists and those in economics and business too, and an interview with Elaine Arun herself, my head is full of further questions and realisations, questions that might be for the future, and so this might be an introduction to ‘Sensitivity’ and specially being a Sensitive Man. 

    Would you like to hear more on this? 

    What insights do you have if you are male and think you might be sensitive?

    Has this been something you have struggled to admit? 

    Could you trust it if you discovered it?  Can I? 

    ‘What if the real story of sensitivity is one of profound vulnerability and resilience, care and empathy, Sensitivity is much more every day, much more mythic than we think. Sensitivity is fundamental to who we are, and I think fundamental to where we go next ‘

    Hannah Jane Walker; Sensitive (2023)

    Maybe it’s time to be proud of being sensitive. Maybe it is for me, maybe it is for you. Time be courageous and dig deep into this strength thats been hiding behind masks and expectations.

    What did it feel like to you to listen to your sensitivity, pay attention to that soft voice inside, and care, cooperate and listen, rather than seek to compete, dominate and rule?  Is ‘hardness’ a required mask?

    Male Sensitivity… let’s talk about it. What does this mean to you?

    Has being sensitive been a gift or a challenge for you?

    Are you in a job, a community or relationship which values sensitivity?

    Do share below, and let’s talk about it.

    References;

    The Highly Sensitive Person – Elaine Arun (1999)

    Sensitive – Hannah Jane Walker (2023)

    If you’d like to hear more on this, my recent video shared some of the indicators of sensitivity. Do give it a watch.

  • Recovering and Healing (Part 5) Taking Power back

    Recovering and Healing (Part 5) Taking Power back

    It was a dark January Evening, I was staying at my friends house, and a month into starting a new job, I was about to attend in person training (its funny, ‘training’ was just ‘training’ in Jan 2019) , with Citizens UK, and their ‘branch, in Tyne and Wear.

    I’ll come back to that in a second.

    Powerlessness wasn’t something I thought I was. But what I had consciously and subconsciously adopted in most of my life was a combination of the following, as a youth worker

    • Siding and empathising with the oppressed
    • Thinking that being a youthworker was also a place of oppression

    A lecturer of mine once said to me that I had assumed the position of thinking that youthworkers were also oppressed.

    What I was doing was assuming myself into those places. Assuming the victim.

    What I was also doing was assuming powerlessness

    ‘I cant do that’

    ‘I cannot change that’

    ‘This will never happen’

    What I did, as a youthworker, and as a person was become wholly reactive. I didnt want to, or maybe more so, I feared a position of power.

    That was a position abusive people took.

    I didnt want to be like the powerful people who had abused me.

    Even though I had responsibility placed upon me. Rarely, if ever, did I seek to assert power within these spaces. It was a position to develop others, that ’empowerment’ thing.

    So I knew about power. Or so I thought. I even wrote about it in a few of my MA essays.

    Know about it, but don’t take any. Assume powerlessness. That was the right thing to do right? Thats what Jesus did..wasnt it?

    Back to the story above. I was about to see things differently. And at that time, in January 2019 I needed to.

    I needed to see power as something healthy. I needed to see that I could take power, I needed to begin to take more power in my own life.

    So much confusion around my life, at the time, and a journey on Sunderlands public bus/metro system in the rain to ponder my lifes choices ahead. And training that I didnt want to like. But it was something I needed.

    I needed to indwell having healthy power. Of feeling that I can make decisions.

    That I didnt need to give myself away. That I didnt need to react.

    It was unhealthy to see myself as powerless. That there was nothing I could do. That was part of the breaking down the summer before. Despondent confusion and feeling like there was no way out.

    In a way, the lesson I was receiving on Power was from an unlikely source. But then again. Un likely sources sometime showed me that the universe was in a conspiracy to wake me, teach me, push me, and hold me. I was soaking up and learning something new. My mind was being changed.

    That ‘mind’ that over thought and over worried, that ‘mind’ that had been on overdrive since it was 11.

    I was being educatied by community organisers, how to get my own power back. Giving myself permission to think of myself as having power.

    Yet, in some ways I had started. But this was another one of the many pushes in the same direction.

    This from ‘Inner Practitioner’ on Twitter summed up much of my relationship with power.

    Things start to happen when you start taking power.

    Those around me who were used to me acting in one way, were reacting, revealing themselves, to me acting differently.

    When I changed. I couldn’t be controlled the same

    Small steps of starting to take power.

    I started to fear less their reaction, even if it had been demonstrative before, and I had been scared.

    I begin to not let the control freak have control. I could choose.

    Learning about power, learning to take power. Learning to stop, wait, and pause – even in the midst of emotional abuse – were small, beginning examples of taking power.

    If you have a read of my Survivor story (link here) you will understand how my childhood revolved around staying small and assuming powerlessness. Fearing power was like fearing becoming like the person who dominated and abused me.

    Taking power, starting to assume having some, starting to think of myself in a healthier respectful way, was one of the many aspects of my healing and recovery journey. On yours where are some of the surprising lessons coming from that you are needing to hear?

    Maybe it really is a conspiracy when the universe starts interfering in all the ways, in working you towards wholeness. Maybe its that true power being awoken from within.