The Patriarchy Within Me

Confessions of a patriarchal man when shit hits the fan, and old structures collapse

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Before and while you’re reading this, I invite you to center yourself, ground to the Earth, and declare your personal bubble of space.

Get here and now.

You have the choice to read this with what you already know, or to read it from a place where there’s space to breathe and for something new. An unknown place where you are at the edge of your experience, in your body, with your heart, your sensations, present in the small here and now, with the sensations of your physical, mental, emotional, energetic and even archetypal bodies.

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Life Starts With Feeling

As I navigate to feel more, I keep finding layers and layers that cover up what I’m really feeling, mechanisms obfuscating what is really happening inside me.

I hear the warning voices saying:

—Jorge, don’t go there.
—Go where?
—Nobody will understand.
—Understand what?

I keep feeling, and I sense that deep truth that lives within me that I’ve decided to hide, to keep from being seen, because it wasn’t safe.

The truth hides behind what is implied but isn’t said in the dominant culture that is exterminating life on planet Earth at the fastest rate possible.

Then it lands. The truth that I’m hiding is:

—I am a patriarchal man. I am the patriarchy.

I mean, not exactly like this, but another flavour of it. One that is even more covert and dangerous because it manipulates and appears to be good.

My Hidden Commitment

At a very young age, shortly after being born, I decided to serve the patriarchy so that I could survive.

I play the role of being a good man, a good father, a good husband, a planetary guardian, a man doing the work, a healer, a lover of Earth.

Yet, deep within, I carry a deep-rooted, hidden commitment to serve and protect the patriarchy.

I’m writing from the closet because I’m still hiding. I can barely get a glimpse of this man before he runs back behind the doors, where it’s safe.

Well, not anymore. The truth is out. I’m done hiding and protecting it.

Crossing the line to the other side for my survival strategy means: suicide, death, being cast away from the majority, and pointed out from the crowd.

And, at the same time, everything real and alive I’ve experienced has been beyond that line.

Not Choosing Is Also A Choice

As soon as I stop feeling the pain of the war, the devastation, the back-stabbing, the betrayal, the sneakiness, the fakeness, the insane rat race for money and power, and I take things for granted, that’s when I start hiding.

From this place, I confess that there’s a war going on inside me.

I’m done with it. I’m done with keeping it all inside as if it’s a secret that nobody can see. I’m done protecting it by keeping it a secret.

It’s this hidden commitment and not making a new choice that keeps the war happening, an orientation that perpetuates war through generations, passed down from my parents to me, and from me to my children.

Read this heartbreaking manuscript of the current state of Men and Women relating by Anne-Chloe Destremau and Clinton Callahan: https://annechlodestremau.medium.com/beyond-repair-7-stages-of-women-bridging-men-to-archiarchy-710e2db777f8

The Propellers of a Dignified Angry Woman

I write because I’m hitting one more time the propellers of a dignified conscious asshole woman, obliterating my old, war-oriented patriarchal structures into a million pieces.

She’s not bending to my patriarchy-protecting agenda of hiding and lying because she’s clear of the invitation I’m making to live in survival, consciously or unconsciously, and the consequences it creates.

I write this because I’m devastated. There’s so much gold, so much hidden shit that I’m not talking about. And what I’m doing is avoiding and pretending I’m ok. Pretending to be a good boy, to have my shit together, to be a saint, or a guru, to not feel a thing about how my life is going, to be peaceful.

I’ve been trying to see how all this shit fits together. It doesn’t fit together. One cannot serve the patriarchy and serve life at the same time.

You cannot have two different orientations.

Or, more accurately, having two orientations creates the consequence that your boat is going to one place, and then it goes to another…

Or, the boat is trying to take off, but the anchors are down, and it cannot take off…

One’s orientation to survival uses up all the energy needed to take on a different orientation in life.

Everyone gets two choices (at least)

Survive. Keep hiding, playing small, playing safe, business as usual, unconscious fear driving the space and every decision. Take the blue pill. You haven’t read anything. Get knocked out. Fall asleep. You haven’t felt anything. Play confused, offended, misunderstood, incapable, victim. Avoid responsibility. “Feelings” as a thing to avoid.

Or, play full-out. Be at choice. Feel your feelings. Possibilities are endless. Feeling as a resource for creating. Clarity. Connection. Creating. Healing. Evolving. Choice. Emotional Sobriety. Conscious Feelings. Paint a doorway to a space where there’s space for something new and jump right in.

There are many ways that the patriarchy hides, including:

• Looking smart

• Knowing things and being right about what you know

• Prioritizing being right over being in relationship

• Not feeling, numbing, distracting

• Saying the right thing

• Being politically correct, civil, and properly educated

• Avoiding engaging with conflict

• Hiding, ghosting, disappearing

• Making stories that disempower you and others

• Playing victim, which includes persecuting and rescuing

• Being right

• Obeying the rules of law because an external authority said so (like killing other human beings because it was an order from a superior)

• Blaming someone with more authority

• Hiding in hierarchies and classes

• Remaining silent, small, out of the picture, not using your voice

• Gossipping, resenting, and making unchecked assumptions

• Not feeling, oh, I already said that

I don’t have the right answers. This is the kind of bullshit that makes the shit that is stinking up visible, smellable and tastable.

On the other hand, shit is a great fertilizer for helping new things grow.

Missing Skills Being In The Unknown

I do not know how to relate with my partner without making invitations to survive, to play small, to be normal, classic Pleasantville. She’s not feeding this part of me anymore. This part of me is starved and dying, perhaps making its last attempt to get attention.

—Hello, honey. Good morning. How did you sleep? What’s for dinner? Good? Ok. I love you. Goodbye.

My partner is saying NO. This reveals that for twenty years, I’ve been inviting her to play small, using her energy for my survival, using her radiance to feed my insecurities, and using her to mother me.

It’s not one-sided, of course. She has also been using me.

But, if it wasn’t for her and other powerful women and men feeling their pain and putting their foot down, I think I would have been ok living the rest of my life as a covert patriarchal man, hiding in public as a good boy, doing the work, being a holy handsome tribal shaman man.

I feel mad because my orientation is geared towards lying to myself and lying to others, manipulating, controlling, omitting, and hiding. And I’m tired of that. I gaslighted myself to have this orientation.

I’m tired of not getting anywhere. Starting to go and then stopping myself.

I’m tired of taking off and stopping myself because of my commitment to play safe and my fear that something would go wrong.

Sailing is dangerous. You could get lost and drawn.

Relating is dangerous. It changes you, and change doesn’t guarantee safety.

Life is dangerous. You could get hurt and die.

I’m dangerous. You’re dangerous. Especially if you’re a man. But women are also dangerous—even more so than men.

So, What Do You Want?

I want to live. I want to move in the world. I want to create. I want to play.

What I’ve tried so far has gotten me where I am now.

Perhaps you’ve tried these things too:

I’ve tried to be a good boy by saying that my intentions are good, but creating hellish results, flagellating (beating) myself up for doing it wrong, for being a patriarchal man, for not having the right answer, for failing, then resenting my mother (and subsequently my partner) for not being or giving me what I expected them to.

I’ve tried hiding, justifying and defending myself because I have good intentions. Not really allowing the devastating reality that my actions are creating pain and harm to others, more so to those whom I loved the most.

What am I trying next?

There’s no trying. Only doing.

I’m mad, I’m messy, I’m angry because I want something for myself, for my life, for my family and for this world. I’m angry to create it. I’m angry for staying clear. I’m angry because a life of lying is a half-life, and I want a full life.

I’m getting raw, going wild, I’m feeling, I’m speaking, and I’m becoming more visible in how I am. I am taking a stand for nature immersion for our children and families around me. I’m sourcing the resources I want to create a life of abundance. I am doing more and more of what I want.

I leave you with this quote:

“Hell is full of people with good intentions” — Popular Chinese proverb

My friend and colleague Devin Gleeson said it this way:

“Good Boys Don’t Go To Heaven. They Source Hell.”

(Watch Devin’s worktalk with the same title here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NDt-SPIa3I)

What you have is what you want — SPARK 32

That’s sharp clarity that you can use for transformation, or not. You may also use it to continue the known path you’re already familiar with.

Are you intending to source love but actually sourcing hell for yourself and others?

Are you compromising your values and what you really want and creating resentment for the people you love?

Are you staying quiet and silent contributing to the perpetuation of an unfulfilled life, war and the patriarchy?

How can you make your life about becoming integral with your word and doing what you said you would do?

Resources

I haven’t been doing this journey alone. Beside me I’ve had an online village and a gameworld that has encouraged me to create the possibility to feel, to get real, to hold my vision and to share it with others.

What is Archiarchy? The most loving culture that I can imagine and that has been the catalyst for continuing to love more radically life, myself and others.

Patriarchy — https://patriarchy.mystrikingly.com/

3-3-3 Initiation — https://3-3-3.mystrikingly.com/

Join the Possibility Creation Village Telegram Group — https://t.me/+ViEuN7pEHlcSDlCv

Hit Bottom — https://hitbottom.mystrikingly.com/

Work with me — https://www.jorgepedret.xyz/work-with-me