Mar 21, 2022
On the Marina Perry Podcast this week, Marina chats with personal growth coach Rudi Landmann about life journeys and how we don’t always follow the path we expect ourselves to. Rudi came from a very sedentary lifestyle, ate fast food multiple times a week, and was unhealthily overweight. So they decided to take a more athletic path. But even at their peak physical health, when Rudi looked in the mirror and photographs they were still no happier than before. They were proud of those accomplishments, but it was a huge shock to realize they still weren’t happy.
The turning point for Rudi was walking by an athletics store and seeing a pair of women’s tights they loved. It started this narrative in Rudi’s head of why they couldn’t wear them if they wanted to. It took many tries to get the courage to not only buy the tights, but wear them out in public. But once they did, the fear and resistance Rudi was anticipating didn’t happen. Rudi even received compliments. The biggest thing standing in Rudi’s way wasn’t other people, but it’s the paradigm and resistance they were adhering to. We have to retrain our beliefs to fit a different paradigm and clothes were the start for Rudi to wonder if maybe they weren’t the person they always thought they were.
How masculinity is enacted in society is dangerous and toxic. Not just to women and children but men themselves. Many misogynies and violent reactions to womanhood are so grounded in our society that they’re not just targeted at biological women but femininity as a whole. It’s anything outside the tightly held distinction of what is “properly male.” This holds to masculine and feminine energies, too, not just physical presentations.
We know that people who do not conform to traditional gender identities or presentations are often ridiculed and even murdered. For Rudi, it’s never gone past verbal abuse, and it’s always been by a specific group of male-presenting individuals in packs. Rudi went from being a larger male most of his life who didn’t think twice about walking alone at night to someone cautious about where they are and who is around them. In contrast, the women in Rudi’s life have been unendingly supportive.
Rudi isn’t sure if their two sons (age 10 and 8) even perceive a difference. The boundaries of what male behavior should be or look like have been expanded by their involvement in Rudi’s journey. Raising sons was something Rudi was concerned with at first because of their struggle with gender identities, but Rudi realized that navigating masculinity isn’t something they have to teach. Their sons are already so immersed in it and have the freedom to decide for themselves what it looks like.
The key is learning discord and unhappiness have a source. There could be a wound inside you caused by societal conditioning and inauthenticity, and to find inner happiness, you need to dive deep into yourself. We need to find that sense of liberation and expansion, and the more we are with ourselves in freedom and self-exploration unironically, the happier we are.
What You Will Learn: