Luanne: Good morning, good afternoon wherever you are watching this podcast! I’m Luanne Mareen and the creator of Answering the Call of Your Purpose and I just want to go before I tell you a little about why this is created before I introduce our amazing beautiful guest, Helen Glover who is here with me today. 

The purpose is I get to work or I’ve met a lot of people who have been searching for their Purpose and who have kind of heard the call and answered the call. So I want to bring on guests for inspiration for you if you’ve kind of been looking for your Purpose and discussing some of the roadblocks that come up and how

you really meet that so with that, I want to introduce you Helen Glover. Helen, welcome to the podcast! 

Helen: Hello darling 

Luanne: Oh it’s so good! I mean we’re long life sisters and we’ve done lots of work together in the past and I’ve always been inspired by your creativity, the way you walk into a room and how you express yourself so openly and I’ve always admired that about you and it has inspired me to do the same on some level not just to know what my uniqueness is because I find you very unique and the way you step out and shine. So for those who don’t know you, tell us a little bit about yourself and what are you doing right now? And I know you’ve sent me a little link here too so what do you do right now? 

Helen: At the moment, I’ve really settled into my Purpose and my Purpose is working with men and it looks a couple of different ways. I run a podcast where I interview men about their different stories and about the things that they’ve been through and the difficulties they’ve had in actually being masculine into today’s environment and also modern masculine. My business which is helping executive men navigate their lives after separation and divorce all the way through into kind of that reinvention stage where they can reconnect with who they really want to be after that. 

Luanne: Helen, you’re currently in Australia? 

Helen: Yes 

Luanne: Okay and which part of Australia are you from? 

Helen: I’m just on the border of New South Wales and Queensland. 

Luanne: Yeah so this is the thing like, I’m just blown away by what you’ve created here and working with men because a lot of people I work with, we work with women right? There’s so many things out there for women definitely in the separation and divorce and all different flavors but you’ve chosen to work with executive men. Can you tell me why you did that? 

Helen: It was a weird thing where it just fell in one day and you were like I don’t even know what’s going on here but it just became and I think, there was a lot of universal lead ups to it that I was dropped into situations that of course were going to take beyond this path but I was kind of oblivious to that at the time and my background is interior design. I run a business in interior design for nearly 15 years but before that, I actually was a counselor back in the day in London working with men with HIV and aids when it first kind of hit in the early 90s and then when I came to Brisbane in 1995-1996 I think that was, I worked as a volunteer at the Aids Council helping men navigate through to when they were in palliative care. And so I was a trained home carer for men in that State and also did workshops for men who consider themselves straight and not gay. So therefore, at high risk of HIV and families who were finding it difficult to tell other family members that their child was actually dying of AIDS and that they were telling family members that people had cancer, so I did a lot of work in that space then and the kind of vulnerability of really sitting with big truths in that space at the time HIV was the biggest taboo that was happening. I’ve always kind of tended to be that person who I’m like you say I’m up and i’ll go in and I’ll discuss the taboo because by shining a light on any darkness is the only way we’re really gonna accept anything and make it not so. That is definitely what I’ve been drawn to. 

I had my own divorce that was really unpleasant and then in 2015, I found that after I’d had my little ones, I have twins, I found that I was asked to work back with men doing help for vocational coaching when they’d returned from the military. And so, I did work with them 2014-2015 helping them navigate PTSD and adjustment disorder and leaving the military when they were men of Purpose and they were off service. So I witnessed men who were struggling, having lost their Purpose and their feelings of being of service and really nothing else was gonna do and really noticing the narrative that we had around oh military and return servicemen we need to do tthis and this and then behind the scenes watching people commit suicide, and men coming in who weren’t actually able to talk about how they felt and universally, this whole feeling of being angry but not feeling that they were allowed to be angry either and yet the anger suppressed the rest of their feelings because behold they should be upset or cry or be emotional. 

So anger was the only emotion they were really allowed and that was then seen as violence and then it was seen as aggression and of course they didn’t have a real channel for that either so that really was the universe push push push that I didn’t see.

Luanne: Yeah this is one of the questions right? So how did you answer those? First of all you hear the calls to the Purpose and then you answer the call, so obviously you answered it in some way the “push push” or the “nudge nudge” what do you believe is your purpose now? And I always say Purpose is lifelong like that was your Purpose then or it’s how you express it but right now what do you think it is? 

Helen: Well, I think the Purpose has always been to help men navigate their feelings. And so now, that is very much that Purpose, but the Purpose has grown, I suppose. The fact that what I feel is now really important is that kind of conflict that’s happening between men and women. And men and women taking sides so through a divorce process of course everybody’s right because everybody’s feeling whatever it is they’re feeling it’s true for them so we can’t pooh-pooh the other person and say “no no that’s not true,”. 

It’s not about that, it’s about recognizing where each person sits within that process, what it’s bringing up for them, what they’re projecting, what the blame is, what’s their responsibility versus what actually is really unfair and really upsetting and devastating, what is heartbreaking. In the middle of all of that, you’ve got children who are then used as a kind of pawn within her cycle and they are also witnessing the process of divorce and so there’s then scouring that then for me becomes an ancestral pattern. 

So we’re growing and growing and growing. These things like women and men go through conflict and they can’t resolve it we’re just different and they become a whole kind of gender battle. They rather than, this person and this person so it grows and that then becomes part of their social narrative. 

Luanne: So this is the thing right? So you said the Purpose is to work with men right? In this kind of form and you see something about ancestral patterns it’s a big thing coming up for me three times. Do you call it epigenetic or epigenetics as well and now I realize I’m thinking oh my gosh yeah that clearing of that and how we bring it in and I know that obviously with your work, you go so deep so this is I think also part of your Purpose is to take that person like you said, where they don’t want to, where they can’t really look at the moment but in a way of however you do it like however your magic comes out. So why do you think then is it important for people for you to do your Purpose work? 

Helen: Well, we just have to. 

Luanne: Because what else would you do right? 

Helen: Actually as well that’s where people get involved in like oh my Purpose actually it’s not even mine. I was kind of sent here to do it so I’m just the person who’s bringing it but it’s universal work. It’s a message, it’s a universal message that we’re now in a point where we can see all of the differences have been thrown up. We’ve got all of the difficulties that are coming up to face us. All the people that have caused all the difficulty around us in their environment, right? Now they’re all well placed. They’re showing all of the darkness and the dark side, it’s no secret that we’ve just had the metoo movement and then we’ve just had the trump thing and we’ve got now the Covid crisis and it’s all the dark dark dark and we’re all struggling with… when we’re going to lock down whatever’s hidden is going to come up to the surface. When were put into real obvious bigotry situations, the truth’s gonna surface. People who don’t stand for that will come up against it and people who do stand up for it will feel supported enough to come up into it. So we’re just looking at all of these things that are going on. 

So I believe that people are placed in different roles as to what we really need right now and there are so many people who are carrying things that need to heal us in different ways and so it’s not even my baby as such it was just that I had to find it to birth it right now to help with where we’re at at the moment where people are reaching out to learn different ways of being. Therefore, I suppose all of my path to this point has just been to ready me for what was supposed to happen all along. We think we know what we’re doing but we don’t. 

Luanne: Well, we have a sense about it and then we have holy balls. We actually have to step into that now and we waver and we get scared and but then, I mean we go for it and then we go… it’s kind of next new level, new devil or whatever that is right? But you have chosen one thing and I have watched some of your podcasts with these amazing men and I feel sometimes that they don’t get the voice that they deserve and just the platform that you’ve given and you really love that. So we’re going to put some links down underneath this so that we can go into your podcast and go to your website and all that. 

So I’m just fascinated with this whole topic because I’ve been in the world of doing goddess work and all that and empowering the women and then we got to a point where we cut their balls off and it’s like hang on now we’re so they don’t know what then that’s not everybody that’s it’s like oh so I just honor you for bringing that masculine energy and even sometimes you’ll say masculine men it’s like other people might go oh no it’s too much. It’s like, no we need them to be in that state, in that warrior so they can hold the feminine too. 

Anyway, so then I just went on a raid so knowing your Purpose is one thing right? And I think you’ve already touched on this before but knowing your Purpose then you’ve got to embody it and do it so what is one of your favorite practices that’s helped you step into the Purpose? Or that other people can take away and go “oh yeah I need that”. Let’s have one guest I had. She talks about values. Knowing your values helps you know another one’s shadow work or what do you think has been one of the biggest?

Helen: Oh darling I have to be completely as always be totally, it’s surrender I just surrendered daily. I just go really you’re just gonna have to take that because I don’t know what to do with it. I just think if we believe that we’re truly on  Purpose, then we have to stop trying to control so much of it, yes and so in control of it. 

I watch things melt down and it gets to a point then you just have to surrender it up and and as soon as I surrender to the not knowing of anything about what’s going on right now, why it’s not working, why isn’t this working, it’s because there’s a message in that as well. And while I’m in my own mind trying to solve it or do all the things that we tell men off for doing while I’m trying to do that to myself, I actually just go okay I need to just go right back to the beginning and work out what the hell’s going wrong here and it’s obviously got nothing to do with what I think it is. So I’m just going to surrender the whole thing up for what I know it to be and I’m just going to ask for another way of looking at it and I do that all the time and then I have to really sit them with the responsibility of whatever decisions I’ve made or I have to sit with the fact that I could have got it wrong. I might have to sit with the fact that, that’s my own story, that’s always a really shitty one. 

Luanne: I hate that one! 

Helen: And also, we all talk about belief and we all talk about manifesting and all of these things but there’s never a moment when you need it more than when you really are in crisis and that’s when we tend to then go back to what we know which is actually not what we need. We need the real belief system when the rubber hits the road. It’s easy to say I’m in flow and I’m getting my messages and the blah blah blah when you really are having it all going on like more jaws rocking it’s actually, when you’re really afraid. 

You have to sit in the belief when you’re afraid and surrender to the fear of not having the money, not knowing what’s going to happen, not knowing whether it’s going to succeed or not, not knowing which road to take. That’s actually when you do need to give it all up and listen more than ever because that’s when you really need to hear it when all the noise is going on the negative noise. 

Luanne: And we’ve become such a society that we need certain things or very controlling even the way we raise our children to some extent. They must go down this road and I feel it’s all the trauma like you touched on the trauma and I didn’t realize that and I’m 50 now so I’m like oh yeah that’s right that trauma way back then that’s still showing up unless I look at it but surrendering to that. 

So when you surrender, it kind of like the dark knight was soul right you’re on the ground screaming or just curled up and at that moment you released so when you surrender how Helen surrenders does the answer come to you after that? or like does it show up instantly? or is it like you just get how does it work for you? 

Helen: Well I do it so often, I mean I’ll do it weekly because I push and make risky decisions 

Luanne: Me too! I love that 

Helen: I am a single mom. I had four children. My oldest son’s just now left but and you’re on your own there’s only one income there’s there’s a lot going on there’s a lot of responsibilities there’s a lot of presence needed there’s a lot of you know I mean the single mom thing as well all the decisions are yours all of the outcomes are yours, all of the difficulties are yours so it’s not just surrendering to Purpose and business but to surrendering to all of it. 

So I’ll often just stop looking at it from my trained way it’s kind of like I just surrender to that because I’m doing my thing with it and what what do I need to know about that and and only through that then does the honesty kick in and generally when I’ve really needed a real kick-ass answer I’ve got it and i’ll just sit in meditation with it and and then I’m like no way like just drops in and I’m like oh my god you know and whether that is divine or universal or whatever you want to call it or whether that’s just me quieting myself long enough to know my own answer. 

It doesn’t have to be esoteric and weird and spiritual if you don’t think like that but what I do know is that it works however you want to label it and you give your own spirit the space to tell you what it means and you’re not yeah covering it with with all what you feel you should 

Luanne: And all those expectations too right? Like well give me the answer and then I don’t like that answer it’s like well you ask for it you’ve got to surrender fully. Use that wisdom so I love that so tell me who who you’ve worked with as a client in the past or currently or wherever that’s been your favorite type of person or what’s happened and how you’ve worked with them and why they are your favorite? What qualities did they have or… 

Helen: Somebody I’ve been a client for or somebody’s 

Luanne: No somebody’s been a client for you who you’ve worked with 

Helen: Well there’s been a couple of amazing men that I’ve come on board and obviously their situations are really confidential. Absolutely I think that what comes through to me is the fact that they are willing to go to a divorce coach to be helped through the process. That their commitment to not upsetting their children is just so moving and their courage to then own their own part in the process where they go oh my god I’m actually causing that and admitting stuff like that or watching the other person behaving badly and through coming and processing it not responding. Not growing the difficulty the conflict kind of constantly having the ability and the courage to keep self removing and just coming to me with that. 

That’s extraordinary and seeing people seeing men settle into their own home like amazing. Seeing the penny drop that they have the capability to do stuff like that, watching them connect with their children in a different way. 

A lot of the guys that I work with are executive men who’ve lost connection with their families so they’re quite disenfranchised because they’re doing their service right? And so their Purpose and their tribe is family whereas for women our Purpose and our tribe is external of the family. We raise the family but we go out to the village and this is what’s so incredibly special about what has happened with women. 

Women have been able to kind of have this movement where we’ve stepped up and we’ve gone actually we’re not going to be powered over, we’re going to be empowered and we’re going to you know come together with that what I found with that is that I’m not helping men stay in their power. I’m helping men now have the stuff that they weren’t allowed so we were allowed to express and to be part of the community and that we were welcomed and revered for that and men had the power and we were kind of like shrunk and what happened was now we’ve rolled up into rightfully a position where we can have power to do but we’ve never allowed men to have their emotions and feelings all the places where we were, they weren’t allowed so now it’s kind of like yeah you’re allowed to be a single dad and have your children at home if you want and yeah you’re allowed to be upset and yeah you’re allowed to have emotions so their step being allowed now to step into the space that we’ve dominated. 

So it’s about then creating that balance. So watching men being courageous enough to step into a place where they weren’t allowed is where the power is, because only by doing that can we really genuinely meet in the middle because once men get to experience what we have had open, they can then sink into what that really feels like and they can fall into a softness within them that they can actually reclaim their masculinity in a completely different way because it comes from heart and love and purpose and tribe rather than power and once women kind of get into the power, they actually know that they can have the pound they can drop back into having the heart and the family and the love. You know what I mean? 

So let’s let’s experience the thing that the other person’s had and then just kind of come back together to know what all of it feels like but still be the man and still be the woman if that is what is true for you. So that’s really what that process is and it’s very courageous as we know it’s courageous for women to kind of step up and say me too and to all the movements that we’ve had burning the brass from the very beginning right through to now and it’s now the the kind of era of courageous men to step into that space and say actually no I’ve cried in front of my children and actually now I’ve told somebody how I really felt about that that’s like for for men in today’s standards

Luanne:  It is! Because it’s such it’s such a I don’t even know what you would be the expert now 50 of people separating and divorcing I’m divorced and that was yeah that was not easy as well it was kind of pain well very it is painful anyway but kind of horrific at the same time but that’s done. 

But there’s this i’m just feeling the family unit it just misses out so much you know? And I do believe you know there’s a season of reason or a lifetime to be with somebody and all that kind of stuff but it just seems we’ve lost you know that the family but women have to be all powerful and go out and work and support themselves and all that kind of thing. We are absolutely exhausted. You know I was a key, I was a tea. What do you call the keychain whatever kid and I’m you know we are and i want my kids to come home and I’m home and you know and I want to spend time but again single mom we we’ve got to bring it in too so something’s something’s missing there but I love that you’re healing this part of you know of men’s consciousness and I mean all about it helps all of us so yeah it is. 

Helen: It’s actually an overwhelming approach because it’s only by us stepping up and knowing that we can have that high prepared job and put our kids in charge and we can leave men at home that we’ve then gone. Actually now I choose yes completely different situation and so that’s the opposite. It’s kind of like men have gone off to work and then everything’s falling apart and they’ve got nothing at the end of it and they go I thought I was doing the right thing yeah. Now I want that now I want that and so then what happens is women are fighting for the money and the security that the man provided that they didn’t feel they could do and the men are fighting to get the children because they’ve never had them and so it sets up this dynamic where the woman’s going “I’ve had the kids my whole life you’ve not done anything” no they’re staying with me and men are like oh my god you’ve always had my children and that’s all I want now please let me see my children but nobody’s hearing the call of the devastation 

Luanne: exactly 

Helen: From both people and so it’s really a beautiful process to witness men in the love of their children and then to be able to achieve that without destroying the other parent and remaining strong maybe if the other parent is doing the same. 

Luanne: Yeah I mean you know I always think well we’re going to we’re going to end up at weddings and all that kind of thing like we need to I mean of course we’ve got to heal those pieces at the time so that is absolutely a great purpose that you have. so I’m coming to the end now. 

So I know we could go for hours right? I have to get you back again so tell me… I like to end on something so I’m gonna put all so what’s your website first of all? 

Helen: themodernmasculine.com.au 

Luanne: And I’m gonna put those below but can you end on something, tell us something about yourself that nobody else knows right? Could be something funny, could be something deep I don’t know but I always like to say what have you and you’re probably a person you’re okay with everything anyway but I don’t know 

Helen: Yeah well I suppose if I’m being completely vulnerable because I can tell you something funny but that would just be easy but to be vulnerable with this is that it has been a really dark road this has not been easy, this has been really really difficult and I’ve really felt so many disconnects during this process. I’ve felt people come in, I’ve felt people go out, I felt supported, I felt unsupported, I felt lost, I felt uncoachable, I felt like a loser because what I’m doing in the world didn’t come quick enough. I’ve been in financial distress because I’m birthing this and I’ve tried to drop everything else. 

It’s not an easy process and I think that the thing that I like about myself is that I can go there but I can still feel joy. I don’t get lost in it and I think this is the difficult thing that people will find around me that I am open and I’ll say when it’s tough but I don’t struggle with that. What I struggle with is being seen fully that I can be here but through looking at it and through the vulnerability of seeing it in me and seeing in others that actually brings me joy. The fact that I could go there with myself so I suppose the thing that I know about myself that probably many people don’t know is that I have been to some places and so I do I understand but I understand it in a way that I don’t need to constantly share that because I’m okay with it personally and but it certainly isn’t people can either see me as all depressing or they can see me also all joy that’s a reflection of how they see the world but I’m all of it. 

I’m from here to there and I won’t make any apology for it. 

Luanne: Oh wow I love that Helen! Very inspiring! So I’m going to say goodbye now so everybody go to the modernmethodmasculine.com.au well it’s not even I don’t even say fun it’s been so deep and you just open every time I talk to you open me up to another level as well and another in a just another depth and it’s like oh wow there’s a there’s a lot more to go there which is the beautiful work that you bring to the world and I love you and thank you so much Helen for being here! All right everyone tune in next time bye for now!

Find out more about Helen Glove https://www.themodernmasculine.com.au/