by Sally Scott, Perth, Australia
Imagine standing in front of a man with your back to him. He stands a metre from you. You do not know this man, but this man represents your relationships with men. This man is standing behind you, ready and waiting to catch you. You are playing the trust game which many of us would have played at school or on camp – having someone stand behind you, ready to catch you when you fall backwards.
This is an exercise in TRUST – about women being able to let themselves go, fall backwards without bracing the body and surrender it to be absolutely looked after, held, cared for, loved and supported by a man.
So, what if you were asked to let yourself go, and trust completely that the man behind you would be there to break your fall and catch you just before your body hits the ground? There can be no holding back, no testing the water, no going and then bringing yourself back up again, and no-one else there to catch you half way down. This requires you to completely surrender – no doubts, no reservations, no buts, no ‘what ifs’, no complication – but an absoluteness in trusting men.
Is it possible to truly see the man standing behind you? Or do we have pictures that get in the way? I have such a complex picture of men, which I have constructed from the way I’ve seen them in my family, in sport, on TV, in magazines and throughout my education. My general experiences, conversations, relationships, interactions and meetings with men have also added to this picture; along with my ideals and beliefs of how they should be, all in addition to the memories I hold of them. All of this has contributed to my not allowing myself to open up to men, to my keeping men at a distance and to my mistrusting men. I cannot allow myself to completely fall and trust. Can you?
What else may be stopping us from falling into the arms of a man?
Is it possible that we protect ourselves from men? Looking out into the world, could it be that we are under the illusion that we accept men, we trust them and we love them? I have come to realise that I walk around protecting myself from them. There is a measured amount of love I allow out and there is definitely a measured amount of love that I allow in through my protective cover. I could not fall backwards even when I wanted to, because there was so much ‘stuff’ in the way of how I saw men. The awful thing is, that this realisation actually impacts on all my relationships, not just with men. Could it be that we measure the amount of love we give to people and have a definite way in which we keep people at a distance? But why has this absurd issue happened? Why have we protected ourselves from being all the love that we are with men, and are now unable to completely trust them? Could it be possible that we have been hurt by men? There would be hundreds of examples of this – you could reflect on some that are relevant to you – but generally these examples are what we carry with us and create pictures and stories from.
What if this exercise of falling backwards was not about falling into that hurt, rejection and abuse, but an opportunity to trust and know men for who they truly are? Can we let go of our own protective bubble, sweep away any rejection, hurt and abuse and let go of the pictures we may have of men? Can we allow ourselves to feel who men truly are and to see that they are just like us?
For me, surrendering to the trust exercise is now an exercise of falling whole-heartedly into the arms of a man and returning to a love I deeply know and TRUST. A love that is warm and strong, where its embrace will not engulf me but hold me delicately, knowing how precious I am. It is trusting that men see how beautiful I am and love and honour this.
There is no doubt in leaning back now, as I know exactly where I am returning to. The arms I fall into will catch me lovingly and with deep care.
Can you also fall and trust? If, as Women, we learn to trust men again, then maybe they will also learn to trust in us.