{"id":2755,"date":"2012-11-26T02:21:11","date_gmt":"2012-11-26T07:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=2755"},"modified":"2012-11-26T02:24:03","modified_gmt":"2012-11-26T07:24:03","slug":"gimme-a-man-with-muscle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=2755","title":{"rendered":"Gimme a man with muscle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"center\">The mere mention of a \u201cman with muscle\u201d conjures up images of a male with rippling abs and bulging biceps.\u00a0 However, I am <em>NOT<\/em> speaking to the kind of muscle that develops as a result of sweat-filled hours in a gym or the kind of muscle whose size grows and whose form is sculpted against the resistance of heavy dumbbells.<\/p>\n<p>I am talking about a man who is developing his <em>spiritual muscles. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u2026A man who, rather than gazing into the bathroom mirror, sees All of Life as a reflection of who he is.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026A man who measures his strength not by his physical attributes or material gains, but instead gauges his greatness by his life experiences of compassion, service, and gratitude.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026A man whose purpose in life is not to see how much he can get out of it, but rather to see how much he can place into it.<\/p>\n<p>In a spiritual partnership, brute strength has little value at the end of the day.\u00a0 A Partnership of Souls requires no more than a common desire to experience God.\u00a0 A man who knows <em>Who He Is<\/em> and <em>Why He is Here<\/em> and <em>Where He is Going<\/em> brings into a relationship a level of authenticity and presence that cannot be bought, controlled, coerced, manufactured, strong-armed, fabricated, or misunderstood.<\/p>\n<p>The spiritual muscle of a man is not cultivated through acts of aggression or power.\u00a0 It is not fine-tuned through abusive or dominant behavior.\u00a0 It is not crafted through apathy or indifference.\u00a0 A spiritual muscle\u2019s potency is not fed by its need to be right or its willingness to simply blend in.\u00a0 The magnitude of a man\u2019s soul is not dependent upon bulging biceps or powerful careers or financial wealth.<\/p>\n<p>A man\u2019s spiritual muscle is developed through awareness and intention, through humor and humility, through presence and purpose. \u00a0\u00a0A gentle and consistent introspection is the type of exercise the muscles of the soul yearn for and respond to. The female spirit is drawn to empathic energy.\u00a0 Passion between the feminine and masculine is ignited within the light of truth and transparency. \u00a0And intimacy is fostered and experienced within the realm of vulnerability and emotional nakedness.<\/p>\n<p>Society, unfortunately, has got it all backwards.\u00a0 A cursory glance at some of today\u2019s top headlines demonstrates that.\u00a0 As a result of society having it backwards, the outgrowth is a large percentage of men who are confused into thinking that their masculinity is defined and preserved through their high-ranking positions or their sexual prowess or their exertion of physical or intellectual control over another.\u00a0 This same percentage of \u201cconfused\u201d men wind up in relationships with women, equally confused, who are buying into the same illusion and collectively expecting the same return.\u00a0 And at the end of the day, the quest for more\u2026more sex, more physical control, more money, more power\u2026produces the same stark realization:\u00a0 S<em>omething is still missing.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Gimme a man who flexes his spiritual muscles regularly, a man who \u201cworks out\u201d every day, a man who exercises his greatness, a man whose presence in a room exudes an unmistakable knowing and an unquestionable understanding of Who He Is.<\/p>\n<p>Gimme a man who knows himself as God.<\/p>\n<p><em>(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor &amp; Administrator of The Global Conversation.\u00a0 She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.changingchange.net\/\"><em>www.ChangingChange.net<\/em><\/a><em>, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at <\/em><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a href=\"mailto:Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/span><em>.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The mere mention of a \u201cman with muscle\u201d conjures up images of a male with rippling abs and bulging biceps.\u00a0 However, I am NOT speaking to the kind of muscle that develops as a result of sweat-filled hours in a gym or the kind of muscle whose size grows and whose form is sculpted against [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[157],"tags":[231,636,638,190,637],"class_list":["post-2755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-romance-and-relationships","tag-lisa-mccormack","tag-man-with-muscle","tag-partnership-of-souls","tag-relationship","tag-spiritual-muscle"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2755"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2758,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions\/2758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}