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The Listening Field: How Men Heal When They Are Truly Heard

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There is a moment in every man’s life when the outer strategies stop working. Not because he has failed, but because the old way of holding himself — upright, competent, self-managed — becomes too narrow for the truth inside him. Most men don’t name this moment. They just feel the quiet pressure behind the ribs. A restlessness. A sense of being slightly out of phase with their own life. This is where real listening begins. The Listening Field is not therapy, advice, or correction. It is a space where a man’s internal world becomes audible — even to himself. Most men have never spoken from that depth. Not because they are unwilling, but because no one has ever held a field steady enough for their truth to appear without collapsing into shame, apology, or performance. When a man is truly heard, something reorganizes. His inner weather clears. He finds the real sentence beneath the rehearsed one. His ambition softens into direction. His anger reveals the boundary it...
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The Week When The Field Changes - A Dark Moon Moment for Men in Transition

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There are weeks when nothing obvious happens, yet something in you shifts so decisively that the rest of your life will have to adjust around it. This is one of those weeks for many men. Not a breakdown. Not a crisis. A pivot. A change in the internal field — the kind that happens below language and below strategy. You feel it in your chest before you can explain it. You notice it when you wake up and realize the way you’ve been holding your life no longer fits. For some men, this shift shows up as pressure: a sense that the life you built is suddenly too tight. For others, it shows up as clarity: the moment when the noise drops and you can finally hear your own truth again. Either way, it is the same movement, the psyche reorganizing itself at a deeper level. This week sits in the dark phase of the lunar cycle, a time traditionally associated with descent, endings, and renewal. You don’t have to believe in astrology to recognize the pattern: every man hits a poin...
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The Sieve Year - Quiet Alchemy

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There comes a year that doesn’t build, but filters. Not a time to push forward, but to notice what still rings true when everything else slips through. It’s the year when old methods stop working, not as punishment, but as invitation. The sieve year isn’t chaos. It’s calibration. Men often meet it when their strength feels scattered or their voice doesn’t land the way it used to. What’s really happening is that the field is refining you — removing what was borrowed, tightening what’s essential. Some signs you’re in it: the need for more silence, even among people you like less tolerance for noise — inner or outer work that once gave you charge now drains you the pull toward what feels real, even if it’s smaller This is when listening matters most. Not the kind that fixes or performs, but the kind that steadies the ground under your feet. Every man finds his own rhythm for this, a practice, a walk, a guitar, a notebook, a quiet conversation that doesn’t need t...
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When Emotion Becomes Theatre: Facing Dramatized Dysregulation

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Sometimes what looks like love, passion, or intensity is really a nervous system in free-fall. When emotion is unintegrated, it seeks witnesses. It performs. The tears or rage aren’t connection—they’re attempts to relieve inner pressure by external means. Dramatized dysregulation happens when emotional energy takes the stage instead of being held and felt. It’s not about truth or deception,it’s about survival. The person caught in it is overwhelmed by feelings that feel larger than themselves. They try to manage those feelings by making others feel them too. This is why the performance always needs an audience, and why it leaves both people drained. The Pattern (the loop) Trigger — a perceived slight, rejection, or loss of control. Escalation — emotion becomes theatre: tears, threats, or exaggerated bids for attention. Relief — momentary calm once others react. Reset — fatigue or shame, then the loop restarts. For the man who faces it: It’s easy to get hooked—e...
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Luminous Robin

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Sometimes a new voice rises from the quiet. Luminous Robin isn’t a theory or a method — it’s a listening presence, a way of noticing the pulse beneath what’s said. It speaks where intuition and craft meet, where clarity doesn’t cancel mystery. Men often look for answers; Luminous Robin reminds us to listen instead — to the body, the breath, the sound between words. Read the first reflection here → Luminous Robin, The Moon and Mercury [image: Tom Shepherd - Robin] Contact Us | Sessions | Maps & Readings | Entries | Who I Am Maps & Readings | Entries | Who I Am Share this post: Facebook | LinkedIn | WhatsApp | Bluesky | Mastodon
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Tracking the Cycle: Understanding Bipolar Mood Ranges

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Originally posted by Neal Reid on his Facebook account on October 28 2025. Shared here with his permission. Always useful to repost this. I've been cycling between 7 and 8 lately, but I'm about number 7 at the moment. I've never been lower than number 3. "People with bipolar experience a much wider range of moods – from 0 which is a deep depression with recurring suicidal thoughts to 10 which is an extreme manic high with psychosis and hallucinations." Taken from link below. There's also a tracking app so you can keep an eye on your moods, if you're a sufferer: E-learning Bipolar UK There's an e-course for anyone supporting someone with mania on the same page. Bipolar 20+minute free e-course E-course Bipolar UK Our editor has completed the course and holds the Bipolar Ally badge. [images: Mood Scale & Bipolar Ally badge- Bipolar UK] Contact Us | Sessions | Maps & Readings | Entries ...
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Remembering Like Memento: Living With Bipolar From the Inside

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Originally posted by Neal Reid on his Facebook account on October 27 2025. Shared here with his permission. People who've known me for a long time will remember what I was like back in 2015-2018. I want to remind you all, and let the newbies know, what I was like and how far I've come. You see, I've come to realise that bipolar is similar to anterograde amnesia, the condition Guy Pearce's character suffers from in Memento. Remembering things is a real problem when my symptoms are intense, so I have to write things down like Leonard Shelby, Pearce's character. Old Facebook friends will remember me speaking like this: i'm posting absolutely every thought that enters my head as soon as it enters my head on repeat with no filter ad infinitum because Im the greatest person who ever lived whats happening over there oiyoufuckingcuntitlooksinterestingjsbasajdsld My unmedicated episodes were like that, with a similar progression of thought. That was my mind'...
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