Vigilance and vulnerability make strange bedfellows...

This is the thing that many wpmen seldom understand about armored men. They often focus on the fact that the men aren't connecting with them. This is true, and they have every right to feel frustrated by this, but they also need to see the bigger picture. The reality is that many of those men aren't conencting with themselves either. From the beginning, men have been cast in the role of warrior-protector and their emotional ermor is fundamental to this task. They are so saturated in their warrior conditioning, so blocked by their emotional holdings, that many of them cannot open their hearts to love's mysterioes. It's not that they are consciously withholding intimacy- they simply have no idea how to open to it, and they see perpetual surrender as an unconscious threat to their duty as protector. Vigilance and surrender make strange bedfellows. - Jeff Brown, Love it Forward