Angry Sexpats:
Every night, hordes of men from all over the world march down Bangkok’s Sukhumvit Road towards the bars. Awaiting them are literally hundreds of bar girls eagerly waiting to trade sex for money. So one has to naturally ask, “Why are they marching with angry faces and arms swinging widely as if they’re off to war?”
There is an inner tension I’ve felt off-and-on throughout my life but never really accepted nor understood until now, and I believe the answer to this riddle can be found somewhere between Carl Jung‘s explanation of “The Anima” within the subconscious of men’s psyches, andDr. Gabor Mate’s revelations on Attachment, Addiction and Early Childhood Development.
In short, it’s about forgiving our mothers through inner work. Shockingly simple.
Both men and women share 99.9% of the same genes. But the feminine genes in men act to connect us to mood states like Depression, our capacity for personal love, feeling for love, and more importantly, our relation to the unconscious. “As a rule, the Anima in men is shaped by his mother. If he feels that his mother had a negative effect on him, his Anima will often express itself in irritable moods, insecurity, and touchiness. However, if he’s able to overcome these assaults on himself, they can even serve to reinforce his masculinity.”
“The Anima Figure will endlessly repeat this theme: I am nothing. Nothing makes any sense, but for me, I enjoy nothing. With others, it is different…” ~from Jung’s Anima
One of the biggest gifts of middle-age is being able to experience the full weight of these moods and work through them. Failing to do is to risk the very essence of life … and the opportunity to engage it, and others FULLY.
Black Traveler 