Process
Status Items Highlights Done See section below Claims None Questions None Output None
Highlights
Page 8
(Overview of his pained life)
✏️ Why always grief and despair and pain? Why does that always have to be the motivator? Pop culture, media, self help, stories, this book… You have to have been unemployed, lost loved ones, recovering from health issues, recovering from addiction, etc etc, all so you can legitimately have some spiritual experience, Al the tough questions and be wise enough to feel stories and help others. 📖 (Page 8)
Page 13
I was not present with them to have the answer or to fix anything, not even to offer an eloquent prayer. I was there to hear them, witness, acknowledge, affirm, share my compassion and love, and at times, merely stand in silence with them.
✏️ If this is true, then why the need to be broken in past to be qualified to do this? I don’t need to relate, I just need to listen. 📖 (Page 13)
Page 26
Network vs Group
✏️ Inane differentiation about network vs group and how one is better than the other. You could make arguments about whatever you because words are extremely malleable and can mean whatever you want. They all have personal connotations you can’t avoid (e.g. I find network cold and business-like). Hence, i choose community. 📖 (Page 26)
Page 29
Intention vs Commitment
✏️ There is some value in digging into the difference between intention and commitment. He goes into weird places about intent and military stuff, then some stereotypes about commitment. Still, there is some truth in the thought that intent is good while keeping things adaptable and open, whereas commitment implies boundaries, restriction and that failure is not an option. If you commit and fail, you weren’t really committed, were you. You’re bad. You’re going to get judged. Or, what if you commit to wrong thing and have to double down, again out of fear of being judged indecisive? If you intend and fail, you adjust and try again. 📖 (Page 29)
Page 59
We use it as a metaphor when we witness others and ourselves emerging from our dark night of the soul and start putting the pieces of our lives back together. The term Kintsugi is Japanese and refers to a process of mending of broken pottery. The process originated during the fifteenth century when the Japanese shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa made the request that his broken pottery be repaired. A creative artisan sprinkled gold powder into the resin used to glue the pieces together. The result was a piece of pottery more beautiful and with more character than before it had been broken.
✏️ Metaphor for the value of holding space for someone as they put their pieces back together. 📖 (Page 59)
Page 104
- Spewing Everyone has done it. As the facilitator I’ve realized afterward that I have spewed. It’s going to happen. Often times it comes from someone who has come for the first time and realizes they are in a safe place where they can take the lid off and get something off their chest-and it spews like a shaken-up soda. It’s been interesting to see how the circle has learned to meet the person with compassion and love, realizing that the agenda and the topic for the evening are tools to help men connect and that allowing someone to empty themselves is the first step in their making room for new thoughts to come in.
✏️ Great way of embracing this expected step that will happen. 📖 (Page 104)
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- When a comment makes no sense Sometimes when we touch a feeling or a new thought and try to express it, our words come out weird, even incoherent. It doesn’t matter. They don’t have to make sense to anyone, not even the person expressing them. The important thing is that the person speaking gets to release whatever energy was in the thought/feeling and make room for new thoughts to enter. To sit in a circle of men, where there is no judgment, is healing for all, regardless of whether or not our words make sense.
✏️ Makes things so safe to just speak, even if it’s nonsensical. It puts the import on expressing energy and feeling rather than the actual content itself.
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Instead of reading a whole book, you may pick a topic from one of the chapters. Alternatively, you may find a few gents interested in the same book and encourage them to split off for a time to study the book together. This is a network after all and a network can have many connected circles. They can always bring the salient points into the main circle when they return.
✏️ How to deal with book club ideas
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Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
- Rumi
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Holding Space vs. Fixing If we get stuck in our male fix-it mindset, it can be hard to remember that we are coming together to be present and to hold space in a contemplative manner for one another. We are there to listen without judgment and without taking the focus off the other person by going into our own stories. We are the quiet voice replying, I hear you. We are not discussing, calling out, confronting, solving one another’s problems, fixing anyone, nor are we a twelve step meeting,
None
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
- Rumi
✏️ Dang dude.. Yes. It’s not a search for love, but rather just be aware of everything in you that is holding you back from it.