An interview with Dmitri Bilgere
What is an
"Initiated Man?"
By Dmitri Bilgere
I think I measure whether a man is "initiated"
or not by asking these questions:
Does he indulge in "magical thinking," expecting
that everything will go his way, with no effort on
his part?
("If I put it out to the universe, it'll just
manifest as I sit here! Some day I'll...") Or does
he accept that work is involved?
Does he indulge in "one thing" thinking,
believing that some single event will fix his life
or bring him big success (ie, "I'll write a big
best seller as my first book," or "I'll design a
great workshop and everyone will come to it" or
"I'll make this one investment and it will make me
rich."? Or does he see success as a matter of many
small steps?
Does he do well with what he's been given in
life, or does he demand to be given more before he
does well with it? ie, does he manage his money
well, or does he wait until he has more before he
manages it well? Does he take good care of the car
he has, or does he wait to have a better car before
he takes care of it?
Have the betrayals of life made him seasoned and
experienced, or cynical and bitter?
Is he able to delay gratification in life, or is
he unwilling to pay the price of waiting for what
he really wants?
Does he know the difference between being
responsible for his life and blaming himself for
his circumstances?
Does he know the difference between repressing
his feelings and containing them? Does he always
have to repress his feelings, or alternatively
always have to express them, or can he chose how
important he makes his emotions in each moment?
Does he have an idea what his weaknesses are,
and is he able to compensate for them, or have
people around him who compensate for them?
This is a partial list, and not in any order,
but I think it's how I measure a naive or cynical
man vs. what I'd think of as an "initiated
man."
Dmitri Bilgere is one of the original four
Shadow Work facilitators since its creation in the
late 1980s. He has led Shadow Work Seminars all
over the US and in Canada, England, and South
Africa. He is also a leader of the Inner King
Training, a one-on-one coach, a phone coach, and a
dating coach. His book Beyond
the Blame Game: Creating Compassion and Ending the
Sex War in Your Life has been used as a
textbook at several universities. He is often
quoted about relationship issues in popular
magazines, from Cosmopolitan to
Maxim. Contact Dmitri at http://www.dbweb.org
© 2005 Reid Baer
* * *
The fame you earn has a different taste from the
fame that is forced upon you. - Gloria
Vanderbilt
Reid Baer, an
award-winning playwright for A Lyons
Tale is also a newspaper journalist, a poet
with more than 100 poems in magazines world wide,
and a novelist with his first book released this
month entitled Kill
The Story. Baer has been
a member of The ManKind Project since 1995 and
currently edits The New Warrior Journal for
The ManKind Project www.mkp.org
.
He resides in Reidsville, N.C. with his wife
Patricia. He can be reached at E-Mail.
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