Attention, Tension, and the Masculine

All right, and welcome back. On today's episode, I want to explore two terms that are deeply informative about masculine energy.

So again, even though this is a podcast catered towards men, the masculine is something any human being has access to. Masculine energy, masculine disposition. You don't even have to call it the masculine. You can call it go, structure, alpha, perspective, whatever, Yang, whatever you want to call has to do with one of the two primary energies underneath the universe.

When it comes to the masculine, there are two words that are very closely related that tell us a lot about what masculine energy is. They are attention and tension. So very close there. Attention and then tension. And what's important about these words is the masculine part of us, of anyone, is the part of us that sees, that witnesses, that focuses with conscious attention or intent on whatever it is in front of us.

And just the act itself, of focusing our attention is in itself a kind of tension, right? So if I say, listen up, pay attention, you are actually having to garner resources in your body, mind to focus on what I'm saying. Or if I say, you know, imagine the old movies where the drill sergeant comes through and he says, attention. The men's bodies tighten up, they grow more erect, their posture evens out.

There's a type of tension in that. Meaning it takes some kind of engagement. It's an action, right? Takes action to be at attention, to focus on something is another way to think about this. We want to focus on reading a book or focus on driving and focusing. Paying attention takes a kind of resource and, and energy in our nervous system, in our being.

We have to pay attention in class. If we have to pay attention while we're learning something, pay attention to our intimate partner, to our kid. If we're meditating, in using a mindfulness focused based practice, we're paying attention to our breath or to a mantra or to whatever it is we might be working with. So the masculine is the part of us that can consciously focus our intention.

And the attributes often ascribed to the masculine have to do with that, right? Being able to accomplish things, being able to generate wealth or health. And a lot of the attributes associated with the masculine have to do with that capacity, right? The ability to achieve a goal, the ability to perform, to win these different Things require us to put our attention on something and hold it.

And by holding our attention there, we're often able to find success. And if there's one capacity that in many ways can determine success in the world, our ability to hold attention is certainly one of them, right? To be able to consciously direct our awareness, our focus, to whatever we want to be focusing on in the moment and hold it there. And so much of the struggle of modern life and so many men I work with is that's gotten harder.

We're distracted by social media, we're distracted by porn, we have adhd, we feel uncomfortable in our bodies, we're addicted to substances, we're chasing women, whatever it might be. It's easier and easier for us to get distracted and not stay focused. The things we want to be moving towards that capacity to bring our attention. And in relationships, this same capacity is valuable, Right? Many partners want a man or someone who can hold space for them.

What does that mean? They can be present and hold their attention on the other person, actively listening. And I do a lot of work with men around dating and relationships. And that's one of the capacities that can really make you stand out as a man is your ability to bring your attention and put it on a woman and have her feel seen. There's all kinds of ways to develop that capacity and to practice it and to strengthen our nervous system and to strengthen our consciousness so we can focus with more attention on the things we want to.

And that makes us powerful in a lot of ways. Now, related to that is that other word ten tion. So tension, like a tension in some wires, Guitar strings have tension in them. Right. Now, the interesting thing about the masculine is what we crave is a lack of tension. Freedom, peace, emptiness.

Anything that requires us to bring our attention to actively focus often feels like a burden or stress. And I want to be clear here. This is different than just sitting down and kind of watching a TV show. Yes, that requires some focus, but we're really just going along for the ride there. Most people don't get exhausted mentally from having to watch a TV show now, reading.

Yeah, maybe, maybe so. It's a little more active. It takes a little more engagement. You're actually kind of having to go into the page a little bit into the world. Your mind is constructing things versus being fed things by television. But. So this desire for a lack of tension is one of the most powerful drivers for the masculine and for men, this wanting to feel no tension.

And oftentimes many of the vices we turn towards our attempts to get there. Binging out to tv, binging out on alcohol, weed, ejaculating an orgasm. It's a release of sexual tension. And ah, for a moment we feel peace, we feel free, whatever that might be. Now the interesting thing is to hold attention creates tension.

We're yearning to have no tension and a lot of us are walking around with crazy amounts of tension in our bodies. Particularly men tend to carry a lot in our tissues. Tight bodies, tight hips, tight throats, tight jaws, tight lower backs, you name it. There's a often a tightness to us. We're tense. And if we don't have ways to consciously unwind that tension, like I said, we'll find ways to unconsciously do it through turning to substances or through exploding in rage, whatever it might be.

Now your willingness to consciously bring yourself to attention is. And hold tension willingly in your body by keeping your focus on something specific. That is an incredible capacity to cultivate as a man, to be able to hold your attention, which generates tension and to be okay with that, to move towards the things you want.

That's what it's all about. And when we don't have tools around us, it's very easy to get distracted, to try to diffuse tension in our body and to not be able to stay focused on the things we want. And so there's a deep relationship. Just the act of holding attention creates tension.

So the masculine is an active engagement in the moment. We're actively engaging with it, whether that's directing it through leadership or action, or even just specifically pointing our consciousness, pointing our awareness onto one place and holding it there. The more we can do that as men, the more unstoppable we can become in our growth, in our careers, in our relationships, in our health.

Right. When you think about what it means to accomplish a goal, what it means is over a certain period of time, I repeatedly held my attention on this one thing, kept coming back to it. Whether that's something you're writing or a financial goal or something you're building or creating, you keep bringing your attention back to it and actively holding it there.

Not just letting it drift, not just letting it wander. It's that active focusing, that active holding, that conscious engagement. That's what correlates to the masculine. The masculine part of all of us moves with intention, which is another way of saying focused attention that generates tension. This is where I want to go, this is what I want, right?

It's not, I don't know what's next or what do you want here? This is the direction. Directionality in itself creates tension. Definitely creates erotic tension and polarity. As I've talked a lot about on this podcast, having a purpose and a career and a direction in your life generates tension because suddenly there's a path, there's somewhere I'm going, and it means I'm not going other places.

And that generates tension in my life. No, I can't do that Thursday night, I'm doing this instead. That generates some tension. So if you're a man who's wanting to cultivate your masculine at a deeper level, you really need to start paying attention to your attention and the types of tension you hold in your body and how you work with it.

Do you try to eject it? Do you try to metabolize it, embody it, move it, express it? There's tools and techniques for all of this, but the more attention you hold in the world, the more tension you're going to generate. And that's kind of the paradox, is to be a man, to be the masculine, is to hold our attention on things, even though what we crave underneath more than anything else is to not is that liberated feeling of, oh, I get to just veg out or turn off or tune out or not be present, whatever that might be.

The masculine in all of us craves that. And yet, to be effective in the world, we have to consciously generate tension by putting our attention on things and holding it there. And our capacity to do that through discomfort, through pleasure, through really all sides of that spectrum is really one of the big measures of how impactful we can be in the world and how deep our presence in our consciousness is.

So what's your relationship to attention in your life and the ability to actively focus on and tension itself, that feeling of being tense in your body or in your awareness or in your engagement, how do you deal with that? How do you try to avoid that feeling? I'd love to know. Shoot me an email at jasonvolutionary men and we can chat some more.

Until next time, if you're interested in working with me around dating, relationships or your masculine presence in the world, just go to Evolutionary men. Apply.