6 Quotes by Robert Augustus Masters

The more deeply we dive, the less we mind upsetting waves, finding within intimate relationship an increasingly compelling invitation to seek and find freedom through our shared heart, our shared body, our shared limitations, our shared boundlessness, our shared mortality, our shared yes, our shared being, our shared all...P.14

Shame is probably our most hidden and misunderstood emotion. It’s also the one most likely to motivate men to stay away from the help they need – and need to admit they need – which can range from psychotherapy to addiction programs. Performance anxiety is driven by shame; so is the drive to overachieve; so is the pressure to man up. Shame is behind the scenes much more often than you might think.

Turning toward our pain is about bringing into our heart all that we have rejected in ourselves, all that we have ostracized, disowned, neglected, bypassed, shunned, excommunicated, or otherwise deemed as unworthy in ourselves. Our heart somehow has room for it all.

The fiery intensity at the heart of anger asks neither for smothering nor mere discharge, but for a mindful embrace that does not require any dilution of passion, any lowering of the heat, nor any muting of the essential voice in the flames.

Emotional illiteracy has much of its rooting in the historical devaluation of emotion relative to cognition. Thinking clearly is often associated with a muting of our emotions. But rationality and emotion work best when they work together.

So let’s consider other factors or qualities that ought to – but generally don’t – count for much in making a male a “real” man, factors that many men keep in the shadows: vulnerability, empathy, emotional transparency and literacy, the capacity for relational intimacy – all qualities more commonly associated with being female than male.