A Mason's Work

Brian addresses one of the most common mistakes people make when trying to do real internal work: skipping preparation. When a fear or challenge arrives and you are immediately hot about it, ready to fight or dismiss it entirely, routing that directly into the examining room is a waste of time. You cannot examine honestly from an armored position. That is what the preparing room is for, and develo

Show Notes

Brian addresses one of the most common mistakes people make when trying to do real internal work: skipping preparation. When a fear or challenge arrives and you are immediately hot about it, ready to fight or dismiss it entirely, routing that directly into the examining room is a waste of time. You cannot examine honestly from an armored position. That is what the preparing room is for, and developing a personal preparation process is not optional if you want the rest of the lodge work to function.

The preparing room's instruction to divest yourself of metallic substances, the offensive and defensive materials of everyday life, is a practical directive, not a symbolic nicety. For some people that preparation happens on a cushion through meditation. For others it is a journal, a walk in nature, or a conversation with someone they trust. The physical lodge's actual brothers are not off-limits for this process either. Socializing a fear with someone who is safe and trustworthy can be part of how you strip the armor before crossing the threshold to do the work.
  • Why emotional reactivity makes examination impossible
  • The preparing room as a personal protocol, not just a degree-conferral concept
  • Practical preparation methods: meditation, journaling, movement, conversation
  • Dropping preconceived notions about whether you qualify to have the fear
  • When to move from the preparing room to the examining room versus directly to the lodge
The work only gets honest when the armor is actually off, and no amount of examining or lodge-floor processing will compensate for skipping that step.
Thanks to our monthly supporters
  • Tim Dedman
  • Jorge
★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Creators and Guests

Host
Brian Mattocks
Host and Founder of A Mason's Work - a podcast designed to help you use symbolism to grow. He's been working in the craft for over a decade and served as WM, trustee, and sat in every appointed chair in a lodge - at least once :D

What is A Mason's Work?

In this show we discuss the practical applications of masonic symbolism and how the working tools can be used to better yourself, your family, your lodge, and your community. We help good freemasons become better men through honest self development. We talk quite a bit about mental health and men's issues related to emotional and intellectual growth as well.

[00:00] I think we've all been there where you have something come up and you have two choices.
[00:10] And we talk about this biologically, right?
[00:14] It's the fight versus flight reflex where there is something that happens, a piece of feedback,
[00:22] a critique, something that gets just a little bit too close.
[00:30] And you want to kick ass or you kind of run from it.
[00:37] You reject it.
[00:37] You go completely flat.
[00:39] You dismiss it like, eh, whatever.
[00:40] It doesn't matter.
[00:42] That is an indication that you need to go into the preparing room.
[00:50] Those kinds of responses to something that has arisen in your everyday life, that there
[00:57] was a knock on the door and the Tyler and the person or the Tyler and your inner guard routed
[01:03] it to the preparing room.
[01:05] Anytime you have a situation where you are all sorts of hot and bothered about what you're
[01:12] going to do next, you can't examine from those positions.
[01:16] To route those cares and concerns and challenges into the examining room would be a mistake because
[01:25] you are not able to rationally examine.
[01:28] You have to go through the preparing room.
[01:32] The preparing room reminds us to divest ourselves of the metallic substances of our everyday life,
[01:41] the things that are offensive and defensive.
[01:44] And so when you come in with a situation where you are carrying all of that metallic stuff,
[01:53] you're going to run the risk of not being able to honestly take on the work.
[02:00] So the first thing you need to do is go into the preparing room.
[02:05] And for a lot of people, you need to develop a preparing room process, right?
[02:11] We talk about the preparing room in the context of conferring degrees or what that degree experience
[02:17] is and how do you get ready for it.
[02:19] When you're about to do work on something within you, you have to have your own preparation process
[02:27] to get through to the level of understanding to do the work.
[02:33] You have to take off the armor.
[02:35] You have to put down the sword.
[02:37] You have to let go of any of those preconceived notions about whether or not you qualify for
[02:46] the work, you qualify for these fears.
[02:50] A lot of folks think that maybe because they're doing well financially that they don't have the
[02:55] right to be afraid of things, you have to drop all of that crap in the preparing room.
[03:01] So for some folks, you can do that on a cushion, right?
[03:07] You can sit and you can meditate and reflect and let go of the emotional response.
[03:13] You can take that deep breath and let it go.
[03:17] Some folks need to process this stuff differently, right?
[03:21] So whatever your process might be, sometimes it's a journaling process.
[03:26] Sometimes it's just that naming process.
[03:30] Sometimes it's going out for a walk in nature and feeling that being a part of something bigger
[03:39] will help you let go of that immediate emotional response.
[03:44] What's important then is to, again, with an established protocol for your own preparation
[03:54] to do the work is then begin to threshold into the lodge itself.
[04:02] You can say, okay, well, I think I have let go of all of this noise.
[04:06] I think I'm ready to deal with this.
[04:09] And when you do, you then can either take it into the examining room where it no longer
[04:17] has that emotional charge and you can begin to determine, is this mine?
[04:21] Is it appropriate?
[04:22] Does it make sense?
[04:23] Is the response rational or irrational or what have you?
[04:27] And then move it into the examining room or you can move directly into the lodge rather,
[04:31] or you can move directly from the preparing room into the lodge with something that you know
[04:36] is yours, that you know you've owned and earned and all of those things.
[04:40] So you can then take it into your mental lodge and begin the process.
[04:47] And for as much as we've been talking about the mental lodge all week and for the last several
[04:51] weeks, don't dismiss.
[04:54] You could take this into your real lodge as well.
[04:57] You can go and socialize this process with people that you know, care about and trust.
[05:03] This is not, does not have to be a solo exercise.
[05:09] If you're feeling heated about a thing, you can go talk to a brother.
[05:13] So this part of your preparation, you know, again, is something that you can take on.
[05:19] You can collaborate.
[05:20] You can work with a partner.
[05:22] You can work with a brother.
[05:23] And from there, once you're ready, you can then move it into the lodge space and begin
[05:29] to figure out how you're going to react and how you're going to respond.
[05:33] Once it's honest, once it's true and validated, then we can build the appropriate capacity and
[05:41] figure out how we're going to deal with this in the future.
[05:44] And we'll talk about that tomorrow as we close the week.
[05:46] See you next time.