A man’s mindfulness solution to childhood peer or parental abuse
Trigger warning: emotional and physical abuse of children
If you are an adult man in the U.S. or any Western nation today, it is very likely that you were shaped by peer abuse. As a boy, you were either a victim, abuser or witness to abusive episodes. There was a time when folks shrugged this away, observing simply that “boys will be boys,” “bullies in the playground,” and so on. Not any more.
Denial is a natural and protective response that many men developed as young adults. We sometimes see denial in children, although it is generally only partially formed. Yet there are clear signs in adults. More than likely, adult men experience a range of personal and relationship problems related to their experiences of abuse as children. Denial is not the answer.
Many men struggle with anger or impulse control issues that interfere with adult relationships and may be covered over by maladaptive behaviors such as alcoholism, drug abuse and risk-seeking habits. Relationships may suffer, especially intimate relationships. These men may have trouble making and keeping friends, trusting others, and keeping hair-trigger emotions in check, and may find themselves continuing the pattern of domestic abuse and violence across generations.
A relatively smaller number of men were also victimized by a parent or sibling. This is admittedly very difficult, but in most cases it is likely that the family member abuse only compounded the peer abuse you were already experiencing. Children are not natural victims, but because they lack the skills to fight back, they often learn to embody the role as victim.
For the sake of argument and length, let us limit this inquiry to physical and emotional abuse among boys. While sexual abuse is also common, especially among girls and women, it is qualitatively different, as are the long-term consequences for child and adult victims.
“But we must remember that suffering is a kind of mud that we need in order to generate joy and happiness. Without suffering, there’s no happiness. We have to learn how to embrace and cradle our own suffering and the suffering of the world, with a lot of tenderness. “ — Thich Nhat Hanh
Post-traumatic growth occurs in a variety of circumstances, but the most essential element and first step is realizing and acknowledging that one was abused as a child or participated in abusing others. Most childhood memories are locked in a misty chamber filled with a great variety of confusing and indecipherable fears, accomplishments and slivers of understanding. Cultural beliefs like “boys will be boys” only further distort the strong emotions associated with these experiences.
Adults must learn to shake the entrenched beliefs that result from childhood experiences, and find the motivation to push through and think in completely new ways about themselves, their relationships, and the world. Spiritual growth is much about looking inward and bringing past experiences into the clear and present moment.
Estimates of the frequency of peer abuse among children are very hard to find, since most studies focus on abuse by adults and/or exclusively sexual abuse. Some meta-studies have found that as many as half the world’s children aged 2–17 years experienced some form of (non-war related) violence in the past year, and up to 78% of boys. This includes violence against children by their peers including “bullying” and “peer victimization.” That’s four of every five men.
Why have adults permitted such harmful peer abuse among children? Until quite recently, many cultures viewed such behavior as normal and natural parts of growing up. The assumption was that children bullying each other helps them to “toughen up” and become “strong men” and “obedient women.” Today we recognize these notions as purely cultural beliefs with little understanding of children’s actual experiences.
The gender equality revolution revealed a specific set of traits for boys and men known as the “man box.” Originally proposed by men’s work pioneers Paul Kivel, Mark Greene and Tony Porter, the concept is now in world-wide circulation. An example is this definition of the “man box” from a study of gender socialization and domestic violence in Jordan:
The “Man Box” refers to a rigid set of expectations, perceptions, and behaviors that are considered “manly” and/or a “real man’s” behavior, imposed on men by the society, such as superiority, cruelty, emotional suppression, lack of physical intimacy with other men, and expectations of socially aggressive and/or dominant behavior. Gender-based types of aggression and violence are central in the production of dominant heterosexual masculinities and male superiority that impose the dominating and violating behavior on men, and make these behaviors [appear] acceptable and naturalized. (2021)
It is easy to see how these gender-based stereotypes of boys and men are internalized from our earliest recollections as boys, and become manifest in the kinds of behaviors children perceive to be “manly.”
Spiritual Growth
What is spiritual growth? While the following derives largely from my mindfulness practice, it is worth denoting a broad understanding of suffering and spiritual growth. Here is one of the most general definitions I have come across:
“Spiritual growth is defined as the process of developing self-identity, nurturing meaningful relationships with others and/or with a higher power, communing with nature, and recognizing transcendence and unity.”
Simply put, spiritual growth is a matter of our deciding to lean into a path of recognition, self-understanding and enlightenment. Breaking this down in terms of trauma, we have (1) deciding to engage, (2) identifying and recognizing the true event(s), (3) seeking to understand our responses to the event(s), and (4) developing a practice of prayer or meditation through which to honor the traumatic experiences.
Trauma is not about the toxic stressor itself, but rather our reaction to it. Children have few tools with which to manage this level of stress and instead struggle to learn the lessons so harshly taught by the stressor events. Thus boys become men by learning and integrating the brutal lessons of peer abuse into their knowledge base and psyches.
It is important to understand that while it is possible to overcome the toxic elements of past trauma, especially recurring or “complex” traumas, forgetting the precipitating events is not likely. Traumatic injuries are specially encoded in our neuro-cognitive systems and have become parts of the men we are today.
Equally important is to realize that, just as the memories will not fade (and may even become brighter), denial prevents direct recognition of these memories that normally would trigger a deeply negative response from the emotional brain: unfiltered fear, anger, and fight-or-flight responses. For a deeper study of these concepts within the context of mindfulness, see Jo-Ann Rosen’s Unshakeable: Trauma-Informed Mindfulness for Collective Awakening (2023).
You are Not Broken
The Great Vow Zen Monastery outside Portland, Oregon, has a garden memorial area which includes a shrine for broken pottery. Plates, tea pots, and mugs of all kinds that were broken in daily use are brought to the shrine and re-assembled in fantastical ways, one piece lays inside or atop another, and often combined with a Jizo figure, a Buddhist protector of those journeying through the physical and spiritual realms. The new forms are carefully displayed on shelves in the memorial garden. This shrine demonstrates that nothing is ever really broken.
Humans, like pottery, are incredibly adaptable. Most men survive traumatic experiences one way or another. But surviving is merely a shadow of full-on thriving. So I will assume, if you are still reading, that you wish to move beyond your childhood traumatic experiences and utilize the intensity of these memories to turn toward spiritual growth. I will join you as a guide, since I am one of you — a victim of childhood peer abuse.
Before we begin, please understand that you are not broken. Surviving childhood abuse means that you have suffered, and most likely continue to suffer in ways too subtle to fathom directly. Denial is a false byproduct of suffering. In the mindfulness tradition, I encourage you to find a quiet place to remember and process your memories and emotions one step at a time.
The first and most important step when deciding to engage is giving up denial, which prior to this point was a weak but reliable defense. Giving up the shield of denial means becoming vulnerable, a challenging step for many of us men. Take a little time with this step. Imagine what “dropping your shield” will feel like.
Next, we will identify and recognize the true events from our childhoods that precipitated the trauma. Try to recall at least one or several of these events in detail. I find that memories have a way of “sticking” together. Once we begin to focus on the past, the details often come flooding in. This will be painful and may bring unwelcome emotional responses. Relax with these. Visualize the events as much as possible, as if watching an old movie.
Next, seek to understand your response to the event(s), especially your emotional reactions at the time. Did you feel helpless, angry, foolish, fearful, stupid, unworthy? Any of these, and many other emotions, are natural responses to traumatic suffering, to being victimized bodily, emotionally and socially. Again, go slow and remain grounded in your adult body.
Finally, and perhaps most crucial to this process of awakening, is to develop a practice of prayer or meditation through which to honor the traumatic experiences. This may seem counter-intuitive at first. But since we cannot forget these painful memories, and because we are now exposed to them like never before, we need to provide them a respected and honorable place within our “self-perception” cognitive landscape.
As men, our emergence from boyhood was heavily influenced by these traumatic experiences, and so they are given an honorable place alongside the many positive experiences accumulated along the way. But there is another reason we honor these brutal traumas from the past.
In the Plum Village mindfulness tradition as established by the venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, individual consciousness or the neuro-cognitive pathways that form the essence of who we are as men is envisioned analogous to a garden. All experience is “stored” in the lower tier or “underground,” and visualized as “seeds.” This includes seeds of ill-being and seeds of well-being. Depending on the conditions, various seeds may begin to grow.
If we are stuck in denial and faced with challenging conditions and we are unprepared, the seeds of ill-being will begin to grow, fostering anger, fearfulness, isolation, and so on. But when we do away with denial and prepare ourselves for all life conditions, the seeds of ill-being are suppressed and the seeds of well-being begin to flourish, bringing us equanimity, compassion, joy, love, togetherness, and so on.
How do we become prepared and maintain this state without engaging the seeds of ill-being? This is accomplished through mindfulness meditation, prayer or similar contemplative practice. Mindfulness provides a grounded framework from which to acknowledge, accept and welcome the traumatic events from our childhoods, smile at them, and gently return them to their honored place in the cognitive essence of the self.
With some practice, this mindfulness strategy may be utilized to take on all manner of disturbing and challenging issues that arise in a man’s life. Taking the time to sit with these issues, accepting and welcoming them, is crucial to the continuing process of self-discovery that will set us on the path of thriving.
Vic Caldarola is the founder and lead facilitator of the Shine a Light Men’s Project, a men’s mindfulness group, and a member of the Still Water Mindfulness Practice Center of Maryland. He holds a Masters degree in Psychological Services and a PhD in Communications Studies.
