Journey Beyond reflections

Journey Beyond (JB) together with my whole trip was fantastic! 

I loved hanging out with other JiM guys in Houston, Atlanta, Chicago and LA, and hanging out with Scott in Houston and celebrating his birthday (despite vomiting)!

At Journey Beyond, I felt I rediscovered my boyhood and celebrated my masculinity. 

In Journey Beyond I yelled at my “wife” for 2-min.

In my Guts work, I smashing the negative messages I’ve believed about myself. 

JB was the hardest work and most fun. It was totally worth it. 

I felt: affirmed, connected, and belonging as a man.

I shared all this with my counsellor and he summed it up as: “You’re loving your inner child from my healthy adult self.” I agree.

I also realised that the pedophile who abused me aged 7 & 8 was overweight. I vowed I would never be like him in ANY way.

 
That’s come out in me NEVER wanting to be overweight.

This is fragmenting men into parts and only seeing part of other men, such as their body fat.

Other men do it with me and only see my muscles, abs, and V-line.

Overall I feel accepted, respected, “man enough”, and I belonged. It was well worth going.

Another highlight of JB for me was standing naked together with 3x other men who had my same body type: muscular and lean.

This effectively reversed the feeling of my sexual abuse. When I was sexually abused, I was naked and physically vulnerable, and the pedophile violated that trust and sexualised the experience. This process recreated the setting of being naked and physically vulnerable, yet in the presence of safe men.

As I joined the circle of awesome looking men, it hit me: I really fully felt like I belonged, I was accepted, trusted, and respected as an equal. I was standing in the right group, and I was accepted. I was man enough for this group, and I felt very connected with them. 

Then it became even more impactful! As I was feeling joy and extremely connected to them, I got a boner! It wasn’t a sexual thing at all. My body turned my penis completely hard, which made me even more vulnerable! And that is what I needed! To be in THE MOST vulnerable state: naked and erect! And I still felt accepted, belonging, respected, trusted, and loved. There was no shame from the other men. There was even respect. 

It didn’t last long and it went down. I was seen, accepted, respected, “man enough”, and I belonged.