Dare to be Sensitive

[Music]

[Music]

it’s 2013.

i’m in new york city in a room with 75

other people all gathered

for a personal transformation program

and we are doing an exercise called free

our inner animal don’t worry it was all

consensual

so we’re paired up the idea is we are

paired up with each other

and our partners are supposed to

our partners are supposed to provoke us

enough so that we can have a cathartic

experience

and release stuck energy

and it’s going really well at a moment

i realize there’s emotions in the room i

see around myself

and i see people crying i see people

sitting in a corner completely

disheveled

i see people shouting

i almost see people flying across the

room

i was having a very different experience

though

more my partner tried to provoke me the

more

i would go numb the more i would get

shut down

so what the facilitator did was they

added

more people to work with me at one point

i had five people surrounding me trying

to get some kind of emotions out of me

i am 35 at this time i am a solid

stoic rock of a man i am numb

and i’m kind of proud of it

but before i go further i want to talk

about the story of how i got to this

point in time

it’s 1984 i’m seven-year-old

growing up in a small town in india

we have my cousins visiting us for

summer vacations

we’ve just spent two months amazing

fun in my hometown in the foothills of

the himalayas

and today is the day when they leave to

go back home

i’m upset i’m completely devastated that

they’re leaving

i’m crying and my mother sees me crying

and upset

and she comes to me and in the most

loving

you know as a mother is protective of

her child she comes to me and says

son i’m really worried about you

how are you going to live your life if

you’re this sensitive

in that moment i took those words to my

heart

i decided that feeling that

much was not okay i said to myself

i will never allow myself to feel that

way ever again

a few years later it’s 1991

i’m woken up with the news that my

grandmother’s just passed away

i’m sad i’m shocked

also because we had just cremated my

grandfather’s body the day before

i entered into this room and i see my

father

on the floor surrounded by my extended

family

and he’s crying and he’s inconsolable

he’s completely out of control

he’s just lost both of his parents in a

span of 48 hours

i look at him with all these emotions

coming out and i’m shocked

and i’m scared he was my bedrock he was

my emotional rock

the way i remembered my father was that

he could handle any intense emotions

without any issues

in that moment subconsciously

i decided that i had to be the brave one

now

that i had to be the responsible one

in that moment i also saw my father’s

vulnerability

as a weakness

by this time i had already made up my

mind that men are not supposed to be

that

emotional

so from then on any time i went through

any kind of intense emotions

i went through any kind of heartbreak i

would reinforce this idea

that i will never allow myself

to feel this way ever again that feeling

that much was not

okay for me as a man

it’s 2002 now

i’m 25 and i get a phone call

it’s my cousin at the other end and he

tells me that my father’s passed away

he tells me that he was in a motorbike

accident three days ago and he had been

in the hospital

for three days and nobody called me

because

they felt that it wasn’t a critical

situation

and that i shouldn’t be alarmed i was

angry i was really angry that nobody

had informed me that this had happened

i was really angry at the system that

failed my father

i was angry and felt powerless that i

couldn’t do anything the time had passed

but my rational mind was busy trying to

figure out the logistics to get to india

i was living in edinburgh by this time

next day i’m in india

i’m in front of my father’s body

he’s lying on a slab of ice

i look at his face and i see that he’s

gone

and i couldn’t show any emotions

i look at him and i want to

be inconsolable i want to lash out

but i’m also realizing that i am now

the head of the family that i can’t be

seen

as a man going out of control

that i have to take care of things

so after a while i come back to scotland

and buried myself

in my career and shutting my emotions

more and more down over the next decade

it also cost me my relationship my first

marriage

so back in 2013 in this room in new york

city

where i am surrounded by five people

all trying to get some kind of emotion

out of me

by this time i’m living in this narrow

bandwidth of emotions

where i wouldn’t allow myself to feel

sad

or any kind of pain and at the same time

i wouldn’t allow myself to feel any

happiness

or joy

and in one moment something

broke open

last 30 years of suppressed emotions

just all came out in one go

and i grabbed my facilitator by

her shoulders i pinned her against the

wall

and i literally shouted with all my

might in her face

and the words that could all come out of

my mouth were

i don’t know who i am

and i said those words and i fell on the

ground

curled up in fetal position and just

cried

for next two years i went on a journey

to discover who i had become

i went on a journey to investigate my

emotions

my vulnerability my sensitivity my

feelings

i surrounded myself with people and with

teachers

with women who could give me who could

teach me how to keep an

open heart and he could point out when i

would close my heart

women who were not afraid to point out

when i was trying to hide my feelings i

surrounded myself with men

who had done the work to understand

their self-worth

men who were not afraid to show emotions

men for whom vulnerability was not a

weakness but strength

and that completely transformed my life

i started to see my relationships

changing as i was able to

incorporate vulnerability incorporate my

sensitivity

i had some of the best connections i had

ever had in my life

not just romantically not just intimacy

wise but

with my family with my colleagues with

my coworkers with my friends

everywhere everything started to

transform

and i took connection and relationship

as a practice

and i made that my life goal

since then i’ve worked with hundreds of

men

and i see this across the board

that our culture has conditioned men

to see our vulnerability as weakness to

see

our sensitivity as something wrong

last year i did a men’s connection

workshop

i facilitated it at the ministry of

justice

it was a room full of men and i asked

them one

simple question i asked them how are you

feeling

and you know what i got back every

single man responded with just

two words i am good

and i’m fine

so i asked him since when

as us men have only two words to

describe our feelings

one of the men got up and said oh

when i share my feelings it feels like

i’m burning some people

i’m burning others by sharing my

feelings

someone else got up and said when i

share my feelings

i feel like someone will take advantage

of me

and that’s my experience across the

board working with men

that we carry with us this invisible

belief

invisible burden that we don’t want to

get let go of

so in conclusion i want to leave you

with this

as men i think we grow up thinking that

our vulnerability

is weakness that our sensitivity

is somehow wrong that our feelings will

burden other people

we are walking around sleeping walking

around

sacrificing ourselves for our families

for our friends for our partners

and at the same time deep down we’re

really angry

and that anger leaks out anyway

we are emotionally unable

unavailable to the world

i believe that we need to create a world

where young boys

are told that their sensitivity is to be

cherished

something to be celebrated a world where

vulnerability is not seen as weakness

but as strength a world where

asking for help is not just okay but it

is the healthy thing to do

a world where men can share our feelings

our emotions our vulnerability are

burdened with other men without any

problem

i believe that if we heal this part of

our collective consciousness

we will get to heal our

ancestors the wounds of our ancestors

and also the generations to come

i think that’s how we heal our entire

lineage

that’ll be a world that’ll have love

more love and more kindness

to ourselves towards other people

towards all living being and even our

planet

so i want to invite you

there to be sensitive thank you