Many times, a man is bombarded with messages from family, the media, or other places about “how to be a man.” It’s a rather covert way of saying, “Men don’t cry” or “Men don’t show emotions.”
Is that how you run through your life, numbing out anger, fear, love, joy, jealousy, and other emotions because you don’t want to show them to even your best friends or lovers?
I’d like to offer you an opportunity to look at your emotions as assets for your life. When you can connect with your emotions and feelings in a healthy way, then you are going to have more success and happiness. Who knows? You might even become more attractive romantically if that’s your choice.
Yet, let’s not put the cart before the horse, if you will, because thinking and believing that you cannot express your emotions at all is going to bite you in the butt.
Safely expressing your emotions is OK.
Too many times, men have stifled their emotions and never found places to safely let them out. They either become so mad and angry that they harm others, or they hold those hardened emotions within themselves. Holding on to all of that anger, fear, and sadness can manifest itself into addictions or even suicide.
Sounds harsh, doesn’t it? Yet, if you looked around in your world, I sense that you have had at least one male who has crossed your life path who never, ever found a way to express what he was feeling safely. A lot of men walk around in a daze, following what their fathers and forefathers told them to do.
Men who had no examples at all in the family system looked to others for guidance. They were doing their best to connect with people at the emotional level they were shown, but somewhere along the road of life, things went into the ditch.
That’s why safely expressing your emotions is OK. Finding outlets to do so, whether in therapy or men’s groups, is important. “Macho men” are really little boys who are scared inside. It’s one of the biggest false narratives in the world today. Hell, it’s been around for centuries, and that type of attitude never works.
It might hold up for a little bit, but hanging on to your vicarious 20s when you are in your 50s and 60s without growing emotionally affects every single relationship you have in your life.
Liabilities remain in need of work.
Let me share a personal story with you. I grew up in a pretty sheltered lifestyle, having to cater to my mother’s and grandmother’s needs a lot. Whether it was a nervous breakdown, alcohol addiction, overly dramatic reactions to small events, or being “kidnapped” for weekends away from my father and friends, all I understood emotionally was that other people’s emotions were more important than mine.
From that point of view, I entered into adulthood. It was like walking into darkness, and no one was around to help me. I never let co-workers know about this part of my life, although a very dear friend told me years later that he considered it a miracle that I survived all that trauma because it always bled into my work life.
There was no separation, leaving me with liabilities in understanding emotions within myself.
It was not until my 30s that I started looking at other areas of my own life. It felt like playing “Whac-A-Mole” because as soon as I took care of one emotional area, then four others would pop up, and I’d have to deal with them.
I thought that I “knew” what emotional sobriety (as it’s called in some circles) was all about. I was wrong. Throughout my work today, I still have to check in on my emotional state. Being an empath is not easy, friends. I feel other peoples’ emotions pretty strongly, so that means I have to learn about boundaries… and keep working on that in my relationships all the time.
If I’m not looking at my emotional liabilities and healing them, then I am not helping people. I’m not helping myself. This is why your emotions and feelings do matter. They are saying something to you, but are you listening?
Look inward for your answers.
As a worldwide society, understanding our emotions and connecting with them calls for a journey inside your heart, spirit, and soul. Some have defined emotions as “energy in motion,” and that makes sense. They are not static, much like the cells and molecules within your body.
Questioning your emotions is a good starting point. Where did you learn anger? Fear? Sadness? Joy? Happiness? Who taught you these emotions, or where did you first learn about all of those emotions that run through your body?
Start asking yourself some honest, hard questions. I know that it’s easy not to do this because there’s a great movie on TV or some other distraction. If you want to get down to the bottom line of where your own emotions come from inside you, then you have to go inward.
Some of you might be lucky enough to have family members around that can honestly answer your questions. Many men, though, don’t have that person or group of people to lovingly tell them that their anger and resentment are not helping them.
One suggestion I’d put forth to you is a very simple exercise. Take a sheet of paper, draw a line right down the center of it, then write “Emotional assets” on the left and “Emotional liabilities” on the right. Look upon this as a sort-of emotional inventory for you. Don’t do this, though, unless you are ready to get your emotional act together.
Understand that you, as a human being, are filled with beautiful emotions like love, compassion, empathy, caring, and kindness. It might be hidden behind all of the negative emotions that unhealthy people have presented for you to follow. Each of us has a spark of the divine within us…and it does not matter whether you are spiritual, religious, or atheist. We all have this spark within us.
You can do this. You can truly understand that having healthy emotions is a wonderful thing. The best part of it all? You get to share your newly-discovered emotions and feelings with others safely. Instead of hiding in the dark, the real, beautiful soul that you are can step into the light and be seen.
Give yourself this gift, and you will be a blessed gift to the world.
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Photo Credit: @chetanmenaria on Unsplash