I’m always excited to have a meaningful chat on Dose of Depth, but there’s extra excitement when our chat clashes with current events.
A lot has happened in the last week, but the inspiration for this chat came from watching one of Dr. Craig Chalquist's TikTok videos that he put out after the Republican National Convention had ended. To go viral is of course relative, but for someone who typically gets 300-600 views, getting 147,000 is definitely going viral.
Dr. Craig Chalquist is a former psychotherapist and the current Academic Program Director of Consciousness, Psychology, and Transformation at National University. Since our last chat, he has formally secured his second PhD in philosophy and religion.
Craig’s heart is as big as his brain, and he is uniquely suited to help people sort through the deeper meaning of the climax of division and regression happening right now. We do not have to demonize individual people, but there are not two equal sides in what’s occurring in this stage of human consciousness expansion.
Everyone is playing their proper role, including those swept up into a culture of intolerance and abusive and threatening behavior. Their own wounds make them easy prey and without a framework for self-reflection, we cannot expect them to be able to be conscious of the deeper meaning of their attraction to this movement.
He not only touched a nerve, he brought a sense of peace to many people, especially women victims of violence, when he assured them they weren’t crazy being triggered by the threatening political discourse that has coalesced into the identify of one of our political parties.
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Craig isn’t the first one to identify the abusive language and behavior that has infiltrated the persona and platform of one of our political parties. The first time I heard it was on Meidas Touch Network. The conversation was about how Donald Trump’s treatment of and attitude towards his own supporters resembled that of a domestic abuser.
Just as many wonder why an abused woman stays with her abuser, I started wondering why people stay with a movement that disrespects them so much. It’s complicated
What Craig has identified is how that behavior has now shaped one of our major political parties that targets its abusive and threatening language towards Americans who are not his supporters. Many people, especially survivors of domestic violence are re-experiencing the fear they felt in those past relationships and at the same time wondering if they are crazy for being so emotionally impacted by rhetoric that is not the same as living with an actual abuser.
They’re not crazy, says Craig, and you’ll learn about that.
Before we start our chat, I want to emphasize that we do not need to demonize anyone individually, rather we are called to gain a deeper understanding of what this means and how we transcend the situation.
While domestic abuse transcends group labels, race, economic status, and political party, it is only one political party that has taken on the persona of an abuser and integrated it into its platform. This is not true of the other party and at the same time there are individuals within both parties and outside parties that are abusive.
Again, we don’t need to demonize anyone. We need deeper understanding about the root, which is the patriarchal wound, and what role we can play to bring attention to the objective facts and overcome this culture of fear and intimidation in favor of getting back to kindness, a collective spirit, and commitment to save the planet.
It is only the most powerful people, right-wing billionaires who have a Christian nationalist fantasy, who benefit by our continued division and descent into the black hole of intolerance. It is only right-wing billionaires who have this fantasy of controlling and ruling over people that benefits by the addiction some are trapped in projecting their inner lack of self-worth onto what is a growing list of Others.
So, let’s get started . . .
Helping Men Heal Their Patriarchal Wound
More people, including women, are waking up to the fact that men have been wounded by patriarchy too. Women's wound is more obvious and the way they heal it is by coming into relationship with their own masculine through expansion. We take up more space, we take back what we've projected onto men. We define for ourselves what it means to be women. Of course, those who are really pushing us into new territory are perfectly comfortable breaking out of the binary model totally, which is holding back innovation and creativity that is sorely needed at this time.
Men's patriarchal wound is more difficult to see because it's wrapped in shame and it's other men who keep men in their place by enforcing a warped sense of masculine identity onto them. Men must come into deeper relationship with the healthy masculine, which is a partner to their inner feminine. To heal their wound, they must redefine what it means to be strong, which for them is to fee vulnerable.
To feel vulnerable is also what is required for deep connection between human beings. Deep connection between human beings has been identified as the evolutionary trait required for consciousness expansion critical to continuing the human species.
There is a shift happening and it's not easy and everyone is playing their role, especially the agitators who are prompting us to respond with deeper understanding to help us all transcend the limitations of old systems that don't work anymore.
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Men's Patriarchal Wound: A Chat w/William Diplock, Psychotherapist & Trainer for Gender Equity & Reconciliation International (GERI)
I Can Help
All of my clients have a version of the same old wound. It just plays out in different ways. If you'd like to come into deeper relationship with your own feminine and masculine partners, let's get on a call and see if my approach will help. Reconciling inner division always unleashes new energy and ideas about life! Click here to get over to my services page and schedule a free exploratory chat.
You got this!
We got this!
Dr. Deborah Lukovich
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