The American justice system is all based around a person being innocent until proven guilty. Sadly, that’s not always the case though in many real life situations that occur outside of a courtroom. Recently I experienced this very thing with a men’s group when it’s members chose to suddenly remove me from it with no “trial”, explanation, or discussion. Unfortunately, their action left me struggling to find closure and fully let the situation go.
It’s probably best I initially give a short history on my involvement with this group. It began back in the fall of 2013, when I attended it one night while on travel to see my partner. My move to his home was still several months away, but I was attempting to establish a network of friends, groups, and things to be a part of before that day came. This men’s support group was one of those things I was trying to connect with and it was a part of an organization, the Mankind Project (MKP), that I’ve been a part of since 1999. I joined MKP all those years ago for one reason, to grow up and become a man who doesn’t hide in the darkness of his shadows. Over the years since then, I was part of several different MKP groups, all of which helped to shape me into someone that lives in honesty and integrity throughout my entire life. When I joined this group though, I had a few actions over the course of several meetings that led several of its members to feel unsafe with me. Even though I owned them and made my amends to the group, a decision was made without my input to remove me from its membership.
The night I was informed of their decision came on an evening that group was supposed to be taking place. As I was sitting there waiting for it to begin, one of the other members spoke up and indicated a new group was being created that wouldn’t be including me. When I tried to talk about this action, my request was denied and I was told it wasn’t up for discussion. Essentially my voice was silenced and I felt like I was given a guilty verdict without ever even having a chance to prove my innocence. When I left shortly thereafter, I began harboring a lot of anger and resentment towards the group and its members because of this and for the fact that MKP wasn’t built around this type of behavior. Since then I have been struggling to let the situation go because of my lack of closure with the group and its members. What I had really wanted was to state my case with them, except I never got the chance.
Trying to find closure with something when total control is taken away is an extremely difficult thing to overcome. While I’ve continued to send love, forgiveness, and peace to this group and all its members, I still find myself feeling a little unsettled with the whole matter. I decided I needed to write about this experience to help with that. While life initially may not seem to be fair when things like this happen, I’ve come to understand that it ends up always being for the better in the long run. Although I would have been willing to work through the ongoing difficulties I had with this group, I see now that if I had remained there, it might have worked against my spiritual growth with my Higher Power. That alone has helped me to come to acceptance and begin the process of finding closure.
Thankfully I’m also in the process now of building a new MKP group with several other men and so this action seems to be another one of those blessings in disguise. Nonetheless, anytime a person is given a guilty verdict without ever being able to prove their innocence, finding closure with it all can be an extremely difficult thing to do. But through acceptance and the sending of love, forgiveness, and peace, I know it can be done. It just takes time.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
