Lots of people have been talking about the latest Louis Theroux documentary and watching it,

I recognised an underlying pattern, not just in them, but one I'm familiar with here,

and that I see everywhere. For years, I rejected my sensitivity and I pushed it into the shadow.

But what I've come to realize is, if you want to wake up, you have to embrace every aspect of yourself.

I grew up with a father who was an engineer who always had an immaculately mowed lawn.

He loved building stuff, great at DIY, always had a clean car, but who was emotionally avoidant.

And so when I tried to connect with him on a vulnerable or sensitive level,

it was very quickly clear, at least how I perceived it,

that that was not somewhere that it was okay to go.

So that was the model of masculinity that I had. And I rejected the softer side and

pushed it into the shadow. I had the other side because I could be a gobby so-and-so and I was good

at sport and could be outwardly confident. So that was fine.

And in relationships, as long as I was on form in that way, fine. But when my insecurity or

desire to be vulnerable showed up, I unconsciously refused to feel it. I wanted to get rid of that part of me completely. And so I'd go

up into my head and that caused me significant issues. And it came to a head in 2015. I went and I did

ayahuasca abroad. And during that ceremony, I had a very direct experience of this sensitivity in shadow coming up in a terrifying way that was so clearly linked to me being rejected by my father and therefore abandoned by life at large.

And it was terrifying. And as I integrated that over time, what I realized was that what you

and what I resisted in myself,

I absolutely projected out and reacted to outside.

So men who had that same avoidant energy as my father

triggered something in me.

And I would either not like them automatically or frequently I'd feel

...