Sacred Individuality (Part 1 of 8)
I’m going to list some familiar words here, see if you can spot the common theme that connects them. Father. Husband. Partner. Parent. What do all these terms have alike?
They are all relational terms that connect YOU to an invisible other person! You’re the Father of a child, Husband to a wife, Partner to somebody, and Parent of a child as well. Essentially, these are all terms that cover roles that come with responsibilities, and they only come about precisely because of your connection to that invisible other person. And perhaps most importantly, all these terms put you in a secondary role to this invisible person with responsibilities that are important, but undefined.
Where is the “real” you in any of these terms or roles? The guy who exists completely apart from the “role” you and likes to snowboard, or play golf, or simply chill on the couch and play Call of Duty? Nope, none of that matters here. And if you pause and think about it for a minute, you’ll also see that the “real” you underneath these roles matters very little, if at all, specifically in circumstances where the role identity is in play. Afterall, folks will be quick to tell you that as a Father you got a kid to think about now, and/or a wife to focus on, etc... These collectively combine to create the “role you” and encompasses your “Family Responsibilities” side of the equation. This “role you” element intentionally renders the “real you” invisible and secondary. That’s kind of fucked up, no?
One of the core tenets of my Welcome To Fatherhood work is trying to balance the amount of attention placed upon the very important roles and significant responsibilities that come with moving deeper into Partnership with Mama (and then Fatherhood and Baby) with a corresponding emphasis on what I call your emerging Sacred Individuality - aka, the “real you.”
This Sacred Individuality is the “real you” that lives underneath these roles. It’s your sense of identity that pre-exists these roles, and in a very real sense, is inherently fundamental to you being able to embody them in any meaningful way. *A quick note - I speak about this topic at length on this episode of my podcast, Baby Talk with Katie & David, so check that out if you’re interested in a broader conversation. Perhaps even consider sharing that episode with Mama to help her see your deeper self, and perhaps to even serve as a catalyst to remind her to remain connected to her deeper self as well.
Back to my WTF work of coaching new and expectant Fathers, the core concept is pointing out the existence of this “real you” in the first place, and then finding ways to stay grounded in it as these new “role you” identities required to manage all your Family Responsibilities come to the forefront. I call this process the Dude Zone to Dad Zone journey. Or in other words, the art of finding your footing as your Dude Zone continually shrinks and your Family Responsibilities obligations increase. This change can be slow all throughout pregnancy, but will be definitely be drastic once Baby arrives!
The most common challenge that I see men struggling with across all pregnancy journeys is in fact this very question - how to manage these new, emerging roles well, along with the responsibilities they bring, and also stay rooted in their “real self” underneath? In other words, the “real you” vs “role you” balancing act. The biggest problem of all is that most guys don’t even know that this is the specific challenge they are facing, they just know that they are struggling. And sadly, many guys aren’t aware of how this struggle is impacting their larger life around them, and perhaps more importantly, how this struggle is impacting their partner!
I suggest that navigating this journey well, and the challenges of acclimating to the ever-changing demands of the pregnancy-to-parenthood journey, is the actual transformational challenge that Fatherhood brings. Put another way, the transformation is much more about finding balance across the “real you” and “role you”identities, and not at all a battle between them.
So, what exactly is your Sacred individuality? And what is the best way to stay connected to it as your roles and responsibilities place greater demands upon you and your Time, Money, and Energy as you move along the pregnancy to parenthood journey?
I’ll continue to unpack this concept in next week’s post on the Dude Zone.
