What should I do when I feel 'dumb'?
Facing the divide between men & women (and other big problems) without shame
photo by Nik Shuliahin
I’ve been feeling rather dumb lately.
The feeling is right here in my body, amplified, among other things, by the recent breakup of a long-term relationship, an even more recent breakup with coffee (I used to drink 4-5 cups a day) and the ass-kicking I receive twice a week as a total beginner at my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class.
I’m 50 years old. I’ve never been to a gym in my life. What the hell am I doing rolling on the floor with these young guys with huge arms?!
Well, I’m learning, slowly, but surely. Every time I leave the class I keep that feeling in my body of having been in the fray. I feel stronger, more confident.
But in order to learn, I have to let go of all my stories about what I “should have” done in the past so that I wouldn’t feel so much like a fish out of water today.
I think a lot of people are confronting this feeling today, both in particular personal circumstances (like my experience in BJJ class) as well as when they turn to look at the broader crises in the world that face us all.
It’s as if you were to find yourself on a podium to give the keynote address to a conference of experts on a subject you never studied.
“How the hell did I get here?!”
That would certainly be logical question to pop into your mind. But it wouldn’t be that helpful for helping you navigate the present moment. You’d probably be much better served by contacting your breath, your connection to the ground below your feet and the feeling, sights and sounds of the room.
Doing that would almost certainly bring you into contact with the “fish out of water” feeling, but you might also realize that you couldn’t possibly feel any other way in these circumstances - and that insight could be truly liberating.
By dropping the shame that would assert you “should” know what to say to this audience, you wouldn’t have escaped the challenge of navigating an exquisitely awkward situation. But you would have come into right relationship with reality.
Staying here, getting quiet, opening yourself like an antenna to your surroundings, you might surprise yourself by doing the very best thing you could do.
An exercise I often do when I feel “dumb” about where I find myself in life is to pretend that I was inserted inside this body while it lay sleeping last night, that I was just now planted with all my current memories of the past, and all the skills I possess.
Most importantly, I imagine that I also only just inherited everything that I lack.
I might well conclude that many aspects of my situation are “unfortunate,” but if I “only just got here”, then it would also be perfectly reasonable to say “it is what it is.”
If my situation still totally sucks, this exercise only brings minimal comfort. Yet if I succeed in ridding myself of the idea that “this difficulty manifested because I am guilty of not having lived my life properly,” I’ve made a crucial distinction.
Now the most appropriate thing might be grief - because I don’t want these circumstances, yet here they are.
Maybe I need to cry or rage. Maybe I need to be in shock for a little while. I need to do whatever feels like a meaningful expression in the face of this reality.
Perhaps that process needs to go on for some time, but at some point, another crucial step becomes possible and I have a new question:
Given this reality, what do I do now?
There may be no easy answers, but I will be greatly supported on my journey by embracing humility and courage. As I approach a mountain that looks like Everest, I am further aided by continuing to feel that I am fundamentally innocent.
Even if I slip back into griping that “I created this situation” - that was the past version of me. As I inherit the situation today, I am a new man. I can renew my faith that I am worthy of a fresh investment of effort and still capable of learning new things.
Men & Women
One place where I think this dynamic is relevant is the extreme breach between the life experiences of men and women. As just one example, my seventeen-year-old recently told me that her default when she meets any new man is to distrust him.
Some of the things boys said to her in middle school blew my mind. Likewise, the poison that she scrolls through on her phone every day (just like I do). And all the stories of abuse she’s heard from her girlfriends. The “lessons” she learned through the course of her mother and I’s disastrous marriage and painful divorce.
This is the world she inherited. She didn’t have a choice in the matter. Nor do I, her father, have a choice. I woke up this morning trying to shepherd a young woman through this world where the landscape looks like this.
She told me that I am one of the few safe men in her life, but there is no reason I can think of to assume a woman who doesn’t know me should extend me the same grace.
I don’t think a conscious man in this day and age can avoid asking himself what role he has played in perpetuating the situation we find ourselves in. And even if he honestly concludes that his record shows that he has always been respectful to women, he still can’t ignore the reality of the landscape that would lead a young woman to distrust all men.
Furthermore, if a man wants a better future for humanity, how can he imagine this is possible without healing the conflict between the sexes? And how exactly is this to be done until men learn more about the actual experience of women?
Perhaps this conclusion feels daunting. But if men imagine that we just woke up in 2026 and inherited this mess, if we slow down and ground ourselves in the faith that we aren’t incapable of forward motion, we can ask a useful, non-resentful question:
What might we do to make things better from this starting point?
While we can never know how it feels to be a woman, we can engage in dialogue, listen to women’s stories, or even enter into situations that are normally a woman’s domain, in order to learn something new.
I do not mean to suggest that there is no role for women in healing this divide, that women don’t also lack some understanding of the experience of men, but given how the world has been organized to serve men’s needs over women for millennia, it’s unlikely that women’s ignorance of men is as great as men’s ignorance of women.
In either case, a genuine effort to bridge this divide would require all of us to come face to face with what we don’t know - including how our ignorance has contributed to the dire circumstances we find ourselves in.
Maybe we don’t really know what to do, but we can be confident in one thing:
If we become fixated by shame, we will be paralyzed.
Instead, once again, we need humility and courage. We need to believe that our souls are not inherently evil and past failures to learn are not our eternal fate.
As one example of this perspective, I was inspired by the actions of my friend Jacob Kishere, co-founder of the Resonant Man men’s initiative. Originally from the UK, he has been living for several years in Oaxaca, Mexico and has participated in many indigenous plant medicine ceremonies in both Mexico and Peru.
Jacob, who has also built a strong relationship to Christ and Spanish Catholic Mass, describes his path this way:
“I’m not a missionary seeking to propagate a determined truth, but an un-missionary, on a truth-seeking journey of authentic encounter.”
Below are some photos followed by Jacob’s description of an experience of entering into a woman’s domain in Oaxaca (shared with Jacob’s permission):
My weekend entering the world of Wixarika grandmothers traditional women’s knowledge, ‘El Tejido del Maiz’ in Oaxaca, through ceremony, storytelling, preparing maize and embroidery.
Receiving so much from spending time with the Wixarika people and also struck by the sense of trust I’ve felt to be integrated into the world of women for several days. There were about 10 women on the retreat and I was the only man apart from the occasional presence of the abuelo who founded the centre and the Wixarika men who joined us for fire ceremony.
- Jacob Kishere
Life, the universe & everything
The relationship of men and women is just one item on a very large list of current crises that I don’t think I need to repeat here. Yet, the very idea that “you know what I mean” points to a feeling that seems to be increasingly common everywhere I go:
Oh shit, the world is going to hell in a hand basket!
Shame adds the following question:
…and what are YOU doing about it?!
Whether we articulate the question or not, I think that millions of people feel shame about this very thing: a handful of elites continue to consolidate political power worldwide with less and less regard for democracy, our children are being raised by screens, climate disasters are multiplying (which promises more crises of immigration and polarization), inequality continues to grow…
…and what are we doing about it?!
Anyone who thinks about the situation beyond surface appearances begins to understand that we are all participating in this accelerating disaster.
And yet, not everyone is poised to run for political office, become a charismatic activist or artist who sways the masses, or invent some brilliant new technology that flips this script for the good of all.
There are bills to pay, children to pick up from school, laundry to fold, etc.
But if you slow down and get quiet enough - perhaps just adding a daily sitting meditation for the sake of your own sanity - you will hear the dissonance again.
What would it mean not to turn away (as shame would have us do)?
Let’s review:
What if we were inserted into these bodies this morning, inheriting this moment in human history with all its mayhem and we are not required to say “this is my fault”?
Maybe we can put aside the need to blame ourselves or others for the state we find ourselves in - and actually look at it directly. If we do so, we’ll still see right away how difficult it is and when we try to imagine what to do about it, we might well feel “dumb” relative to the intelligence that the task at hand requires of us.
Perhaps it would be helpful if we cried more often for the pain and suffering of the world, even if our own bills are paid and the children have been fed. Through the expression of this grief we might move through some of the stuck energy that makes us feel that we are powerless.
Then if we could listen deeply to our hearts and to each other, without pretending that that we aren’t like a pack of kindergarteners at the base of Mount Everest, perhaps we could take a breath, find the support of the ground below are feet and find the courage to take our next meaningful step.
If shame prevents you from finding your footing in today’s overwhelming noise, I can help you slow down and listen in a new way to find your way back to the path of right relationship.