MEN’S ISSUES

There is a reason why cultures value the journey or rite of passage from boyhood to manhood. It often involves a journey into the wilderness leading to vulnerability with self and nature, fear, while also finding courage, strength, and awareness. The journey is a representation of what takes place within the self.

When you journey toward the wilderness, you face yourself and discover who you are at your core; your authentic self, creative self, and masculine self.

Many men are holding within themselves a heavy weight of pressure, self-criticism, feeling not good enough, perfectionism, and walking an impossible line of what they believe they should exist as what others, society, and worse, themselves believe is a man. I see this continuously in my clinical practice. The internal struggle resulting in poor view of self, struggling in marriage, or being stuck in burnout at their job. This recipe leads a man to question himself, shrink, and lead with the false self rather than trusting his authentic self. This then results in a whirlwind of confusion as to how men attune to their masculine self.

Research shows and I regularly see in my office, men can slowly collapse inward resulting in a pattern of stagnation, passivity, and depletion. Your core notices. It will gnaw at your depths because your core knows that you are more and that you have value. It knows that you have suppressed your authentic self. Self-confidence and the sense of self suffer resulting in symptoms of depression, anxiety, and avoidance.

A man’s core notices the desire for change as well as the anguish of his pattern.

For some, there is an attempt to push down and ignore this tension. Unhealthy coping takes place in the form of self-medicating with work, striving to be seen through money, social status and relevance, and pursuit of anything that may distract from losing touch with your true, authentic self. Sadly, society can reinforce the rat race of performance and achievement, while losing even more of your authentic self. For others, they become exhausted and begin to give up hope that they will find their path in life. Men exhibit this distress as low energy, losing motivation, irritability, anger, rage, and withdrawal. Often, in an effort to avoid or numb these symptoms, men will withdraw from others, become more of a shell of who they used to be, lose themselves in trying to find the right “motivation” whether in self-help books or Youtube videos, and can ultimately feel even more overwhelmed, worthless, and stuck. Shame begins to engage the false self of avoidance. It becomes a self-defeating pattern because their core, authentic self is not evoked with life.

Exploration into a man’s inner core

Facing your inner depths, whether it comes in a tangible form or the slow death of your core self stuck in complacency, you can regain your authentic self through the journey. A man facing the inner depths of his core self and identity creates opportunity for an honest conversation involving those fears, traumas, and insecurities that have driven the authentic self into the false self, creativity into numbness, and courage into passivity.

Healthy masculinity is found within the authentic self, creativity, and courage

The masculine self is inward; stable, brave, and safe. The journey provides opportunity to rediscover your true self that was once energetic, certain, self-confident, creative, and able to be more fully present and vulnerable with others. When you are living true to your core self, a calming confidence grows, and those around you will feel the difference.

Behavioral health changes that help decrease that stuck feeling: exercise, creative outlets, nature, owning your own time, limiting technology and social media, setting boundaries, being in the present. These help create momentum and small victories. They are also outlets that men lose when overcome with pain, shame, perfectionism, people pleasing, low self-worth, helplessness/hopelessness, addiction, and overall crippling of their authentic self. These represent pieces of the underlying process in facing yourself, insight-orientation, and learning about what impedes or propels you through your journey. Your lens in how you view yourself, others, and the world will shift. Find yourself for the sake of your authentic self, others around, and your place in society

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