There's Safety In Being Seen
Wjhen You Show Up As Yourself
To be seen is not the same as being looked at. Being looked at is passive—a condition of scrutiny, often tied to judgement or desire.
To be seen, however, is to be met: to exist in the field of another’s attention without needing to perform or hide.
For most men, this distinction has never been taught. They have lived entire lives under the gaze of assessment—parents, teachers, bosses, lovers—each reinforcing the message that visibility must be earned through action or avoided through concealment.
The result is a chronic vigilance, a lifetime of subtle posing. Even in rest, the body holds itself ready to be evaluated.
The Practice of Peace undoes this conditioning. Here, being seen is not a test but a practice—one that begins with the simplest of gestures: showing up as oneself. The guide’s role is not to assess, interpret, or approve, but to witness—to hold an attentive, non-demanding gaze that allows the man to remain fully himself within it.
To be seen without an agenda is a profound event. It reintroduces the nervous system to safety, showing the body that visibility need not lead to threat. It shows that one can be naked—physically, emotionally, existentially—and still be safe. That recognition changes everything.
In time, the man learns that seeing and being seen are not opposites but a single act of mutual presence. As he is seen, he begins to see. Not with the eyes, but with awareness—perceiving another’s humanity without the filters of role, defence, or expectation.
The exchange becomes reciprocal: a wordless communion between two beings who are no longer hiding.
This is the quiet heart of the practice. Stillness is not the absence of movement, but the moment when there is nothing left to hide.
The Fear of Being Known
Why men mistake exposure for danger
Most men are not afraid of sex. They are afraid of intimacy. Not the act of being touched, but the act of being seen.
For generations, men have been taught that intimacy is simply the prelude to sex—a means to an end. In that limited frame, it becomes something to be controlled, performed, and completed. But real intimacy has no script and no conclusion.
It is not an act of taking off one’s clothes but of taking off one’s armour.
The confusion begins early. Boys learn that showing emotion invites ridicule, that talking about fear sounds weak, and that to be touched without purpose is suspect.
What remains are two acceptable forms of intimacy: the competitive and the sexual. The first is safe because it maintains distance; the second is safe because it provides a task. Both avoid vulnerability.
Yet the longing to be known never disappears. It only hides, seeking expression in the wrong places—through achievement, through seduction, through noise.
When sex becomes the only available language for intimacy, every deeper need is mistranslated. A man may crave connection but find himself trapped in performance, confusing exposure with danger and desire with proof.
In the Practice of Peace, this fear is neither denied nor confronted head-on. It is quietly disarmed. The environment provides no sexual agenda and no expectation of performance.
The man is met exactly as he is, and in that rare absence of demand, something shifts. He discovers that to be known need not be dangerous. It can be profoundly peaceful.
True intimacy is not about entering another body, but about entering one’s own presence without flinching.
Sex, for all its power, lasts minutes. Intimacy—real, unguarded intimacy—can last for hours, or days, or a lifetime.
To be known is not to be judged, and to reveal oneself is not to surrender power. It is to find the strength that exists only in honesty—the quiet, undramatic courage of being seen and surviving it.
A man fears the mirror until it stops reflecting his face and begins to reflect his truth.
