Michael Burns
Columnist
Initiation is sacred to me. It is when I peel away another layer of externally imposed identity to uncover more of who I really am. I’ve had many initiations because, fortunately, my subconscious voice is trusting, curious, adventurous, and sometimes stupid. I’m impulsive in decision making, and this brings me to learning experiences that take my self awareness deeper and deeper.
My way of being, up until Oct. 15, 1975, was introspective and non-revealing. This month marks the 50th anniversary of that date, the day Katherine Michael Strom pulled out to pass on the highway and immediately ran into my car.
My head hit the steering wheel. Concussion. Coma.
When I awoke seven days later I had no memory of impact or pain. The broken bones had been set. I was spaced out from concussion and drugs. My glasses had been destroyed and my sight was blurred.
Up until then I had lacked self awareness, assuredness, confidence, and language skills. But after 10/15/75, the flood gates to the barriers of self expression opened. Since then I have been, as a fellow quester once told me, disarmingly honest.
I started using the ‘naked and unashamed’ pattern when speaking, and also invited others to open up their lives to me. I sometimes erred on the side of disrespecting boundaries – mine and theirs.
Not only had my behavior changed from this wake-up call, but a life-changing commitment to physical fitness followed the rehab. This shift in my lifestyle has paid off handsomely by slowing down my body’s aging process.
Ten years later, my second major initiation came along. In April of 1986 I blindly attended The Men, Sex, and Power Weekend with 180 men I didn’t know. For the first time, I knew what it felt like to be a man among men. I was 38 but I felt like a 13-year-old boy being initiated into manhood.
This is where I overcame the fear of speaking in front of people, and this began another shift in how I showed up in the rest of my life. Feeling heard, without being questioned or rejected, encouraged me to continue taking the risk of expressing myself. I’ve spent the subsequent 39 years practicing: speaking the truth; being self aware; and feeling assured, confident, and heard.
One priceless outcome from that Sterling rite-of-passage was the revised relationship I had with my dad. This was possible with my shift to accepting, understanding, and respecting him just as he was, for what he had done with his life and for his family. As a result of my increased ability to express myself through words and actions, he saw me as a more mature, capable man. His son had grown to be a responsible adult male who could look after his wife, my mother, after he was gone.
I have used many other experiences as initiations: to peel away more layers of emotions and habits that had hidden my confidence and trust in the real me. I still experience anxiety when speaking honestly and directly when in leadership roles, but I’m re-programmed to overcome those barriers and go for it anyway.
I want to acknowledge my gratitude here for some of the village people and organizations who have stewarded my path to coming of age:
Katherine Michael Strom, the angel whose unfortunate driving in 1975 ushered in my new way of being; the Emissaries of Divine Light, the international community that gave me a spiritual education and opportunities to experience living a divine purpose; the Sterling Institute of Relationship; the East Bay Circle of Men and my EBCOM team The Bushwhackers; and Mentor, Discover, Inspire (MDI) for providing me a fertile, SAFE container to practice self awareness, reveal self expressions, and to learn from leadership mistakes and successes.
