The Misdirection of Blame

All too often we blame ourselves when people let us down, hurt us or disappoint us

Why do we persecute ourselves because of who other people are not instead of celebrating who we are?

All too often we believe this is a reflection of who we are

That we are perhaps not good enough

Not good enough for people to show up for us in ways that are meaningful to us, ways we would treat others

And all too often the shadow of blame is cast at our own feet

The shame of alone and the loneliness of shame

Enveloping us and our very sense of self

I have made this mistake many times

But instead, these times are there for us to recognise difference

To appreciate ourselves

And the actions that we take towards others

Which in fact, are the expressions of our essence

Instead, we should stand in the beauty of our souls, remembering not to see the actions of others as being in any way related to who we are

Knowing that we are more than enough

Even if some seem to completely miss the fact

Never allow the mistakes of others to form calluses on your heart, hardening your view of the world, reducing your capacity to be truly you

It's like punishing yourself twice, you may have been wronged, but that need not be your fault nor should it affect how you show up in the world

Never feel bad about yourself because of who other people are not …..

Stay open, soften to the unique possibilities of you, know that only what you do, not what is done to you, defines who you are.

Much love

Scott

(written on a spin bike after a very rough week)

#courage #mentalhealth #selfcare #stfu

Why we should Soften the Fuck Up

It's been a long while between articles and there's been a really good reason for it.

For the past 12 months, I’ve been deep in contemplation about the mission of Soften The Fuck Up.

You see, when I started this blog, I had no intention of it being purely for Men, but everyone assumed it was. 

I just don’t believe that Men are the only ones who need to soften the fuck up. I have most certainly encountered many women, that I have worked with, that I have had relationships with, and that I am friends with and some I’ve known my whole life that are controlling, aggressive, narcissistic and downright incongruent with the inherent nature of their hearts.

I've also done a lot of research on the topic of Men's mental health, reading and watching “the experts” and interviewing 100 Men in 100 days. On top of this, I have invested deeply into my own journey to congruence for the past 6 years with the aid of many people.

Through my own experiences and research, I have seen countless examples of seriously unwell people claiming to be a stand for the health of Men. Sex workers posing as kinesiologists, self-declared men’s health experts with a clear desire to control men in their “healing of men”, Men who overtly criticise and blame Men and wonder why no man is listening and more recently a Mens Health advocate with a god damn Only Fans page.

Good Grief, the toxicity of it all.

This space I have found myself in, is necessary and yet deeply concerning in the context of who plays in it.    

I am not an expert, and I will never say I am. (there's a clue in that). I am merely an observer who's invested more in his own journey than most. I have a set of experiences, I have had plenty of challenges, facing the incongruence of who I have been externally and who I truly am.

I have held a lifelong belief that I will not or can not be loved for who I truly am, so I have been someone else, and I would say it hasn't worked out that well.

Over the last 6 years, as I have been learning what it might be like to do this life as me, my true self, the lifelong stigma sits atop of my shoulder casting doubt upon the possibility of being loved for who I really am. It's certainly not convenient but it is a reality.

Today, I observe myself with old friends, business colleagues, teammates and family, expressing an aggressive, potty-mouthed, hard-arsed persona, knowing it's not who I am, but it's the me I've let them know so far.

There has been a belief in me that this hardness would protect me from people and the hurt they are capable of inflicting. There are so many people, people I have played sport with, people I have worked with and people I am related to that do not know me AT ALL, because I never let them.

The language and tone I use in sport and at work is a learned behaviour, one born of the belief that this is how I can be accepted and loved. Yet super importantly, in all of life's realms, this has left me feeling misunderstood and alone, because, well, it's not me, it's who I have believed I need to be.

These days I have a constant observer self who watches what I say sometimes and shakes his head in disbelief at what comes out of my mouth.

Today, I frequently have to ask myself the question “now, what would I say”

It's true that if no one truly knows you, know one can truly love you, but it's not true that if no one truly knows you, no one can really hurt you.

Thus, it’s a nonsensical model of being, it's not protecting us, it's keeping us at distance from love.

So, we must soften the fuck up, reconnect with who we really are, who we were before the world taught us something different and learn how to express ourselves, as ourselves.

Recently, I caught up with a long time friend, a bloke I played baseball with from the age of 12 and what was sad was this. I showed him a poem I wrote for a mutual mate who had passed away and he was in shock that I wrote it. It's not who he knows me to be.

He doesn't know me to be the compassionate, sensitive, emotional, empathetic lover of people. He knows me as a completely alternative soul, and therefore he kinda doesn't know me that well at all.

Since he has moved to Melbourne, I am hoping that over time I can learn to be someone different with him, someone like myself, it’s going to be a great experiment in rewriting his experience of me. I have few problems with this with new friends, but people who've known me a long time know someone else, hell my tone even changes when I talk with my long-time connections, particularly my dad.

And this people, is the reason I wanted to soften the fuck up, I wanted to go back to my “source heart”, the one that was pure and untainted by the world’s experiences and what I thought it was teaching me.

I want to not only be an authentic expression of self, but I also want to sound like it, speak like it and act like it, which I admit, is taking some pattern breaking to do.

What I do believe, through my interviews with Men and through my experiences with Women, is that I am far from alone with this duplicity.

You see, the reason we do this is not deceit, it's fear, it's a fear of not being accepted and loved for who we truly are.

Most of the Men I interviewed would prefer to be silent in their discontent than risk the possibility of not being accepted for who they are and what they feel.

A lot of the women I have met express only what they believe will be safely accepted.

What we think is acceptable, keeps us alone with our real feelings.

This must change, this is what we must talk about, and this is how softening the fuck up has the potential to make so many of us happier in who we are and who we are with others.

What do you say ?

Leave me a comment.

Much Love,

Scott

Interviewing 100 Men

I've interviewed & listened to 66 Men in 66 Days 🎙
and I am honoured to share what they have to say 🗣
Today on International Men's Day 🕺

You see, it's deeply important to me that we make progress ➡️
That Men begin to be authentically happier 😊
That we begin to hear what's truly inside Men's hearts ❤️
All whilst understanding that the world they were born into
Was not their choice
And yet remains their challenge 😥

I am proud of all of these Men who dug deep and shared so vulnerably 👍
I am proud of them for recognising Man's role in his own struggle 😣
For wanting something different
For reaching for accountability
And for owning their troubles and voicing their fears 😨

These men have very valuable things to share
They have a desire for something more ⬆️
And a willingness & commitment to helping each other
To be of service and to stop the silent grimacing
That lays atop of too many a broken heart 💔

These men have consistently spoken of the need for equality ↔️
But say that they have struggled to find their place 📍
That they struggle to speak openly of their pain
That they struggle to share their real concerns & emotions 🤐
That they struggle to share deeply and meaningfully with their partners or mates
and that they struggle to know where or how to start 🏁

In relationships;
They worry that speaking openly will create hurt 😞
They believe that their stoic silence is expected of them 🤫
They feel anxious that they won't be heard or understood
Or that they won't find the right words 😶

Underneath their inherited beliefs of who they must be
They are desperate to change their experiences 🚨
They are desperate to work through the emotions and confusion 😕
and they are highly aware of an incongruent tug of war ⚠️
Between the patriarchal world, they were raised in
And the Men they are trying to be today

Most say they were raised by Men they didn't aspire to be ❌
So it's like building Ikea furniture without the instructions 🪑
Like navigating the high seas without a compass 🧭
Like finding your way home blindfolded
So we must work together to create something better 🤲

I am very passionate that we speak openly about this 🎤
We speak openly of the struggles of today's man
Not only WITHOUT the divisive view that this is in opposition to women 🚫
But also with a KNOWING that a better man is a benefit for all of us ✅
and the greater HAPPINESS of us as a society 🙏

If you identify as a man and are willing to openly and confidentially share your stories, please book an interview with me here: 100 Men in 100 Days https://lnkd.in/gvPwHNqc

#InternationalMensDay #menshealth #softenthefckup

A case for curiosity

I am not certain whether you've noticed amidst the happenings of the past 18 months, that something has emerged ever so loudly in the hallways of our collective consciousness.

The one thing we can be sure of in a pandemic is our collective fear in whatever form it takes.

Rightly so, we worry about our future. We wonder about "normal"? What life might be like from here? What challenges might we face? Will our children be able to live happy and fulfilling lives? Will the economy crash before it rebuilds?

There are just so many unanswerable questions and yet so much apparent certainty amongst us.

Whether you are an anti-vaxxer, pro-vaxer, an anti-masker. Whether you #StandwithDan or can't stand the sight of him, are anti-lockdown, or believe that all this fuss about a flu is a conspiracy;  the one thing that's certain is our belief in certainty, our certainty that has divided us into the deep pockets of alternate resolutions. 

What I have really noticed is that our desire for certainty has morphed into the actual delusion of it.

When we have our perceived or imagined certainty taken away at scale we tend to create our own. We tend to dismiss capacities for curiosity and revert to fear-based decision making, a certainty that comes from perception more than it does reality.

This pandemic has very quickly thrust us into various losses of control over choice, strengthening our resolve or desire for such certainty.

The problem is that our perceptions are shaped by our life experiences and expectations, these of course are not facts they are just simply imagined realities.

In May 2020, I ran a webinar talking about how such imposed changes that this pandemic would inflict, would leave us feeling somewhat regressed emotionally. The loss of control and rise of fear would give rise to the same emotions we felt in our early childhood. This is and has been caused by our forced dependence on others, the media, the government, the rest of the community to take care of our best interests, much like the dependence we felt at the earliest moments of our lives.

What has been super loud in this passage of time is the absence of "grey areas" in our thinking, a polaric and almost instant migration to black or white, a spoken certainty that somehow exists in the most uncertain time of our lifetimes. I’m still waiting for the playful curiosity of our pre-school development to reemerge in our thinking and I'm worried we have blown right past it.

Ironically my day job is about creating more certainty, about forecasting social impacts and outcomes. In this time we have seriously noticed the convenient truths etched from these adopted delusions. 

We are super busy right now, why, because of lockdowns. Effectively what we have noticed is that when this pandemic slaps us across the face with restrictions, we suddenly regain our awareness of human struggle and suddenly social issues are more important. 

An absence of lockdowns is actually bad for business, as the collective storytelling chooses to believe in something entirely different. I believe that the impacts of this pandemic are far-reaching and will very likely continue for a long time to come. This of course is an inconvenient truth, we choose not to believe in. But since I get paid to find potential problems, my perspective is also tainted as it’s on the lookout for emergent issues.

Although lots of things have surprised me during this time. Who knew that panic buying would be a result of selfishness and not scarcity? Who knew that politics would take priority over people, that we would end up pawns of the bi-partisan divide, instead of being truly and authentically cared for as a nation. I had much higher hopes on both fronts. (idealistic perhaps)  

What I really wanted to bring to your attention here though is that fear, uncertainty and convenient truths are starving us of curiosity. A curiosity that wasn't really getting a lot of “game time” before the pandemic began and has now been reverted to the “injury list” of our minds.

When fear is in the driver's seat, we regress, we adopt beliefs and behaviours from the past and we clutch on to those beliefs with all our might, at our own detriment.

A lack of curiosity is costing us. I don't believe I have ever before heard so many voices of absolute resolve bellowing from the toxicity of our mainstream and social media, and the subsequent “concrete” perspectives it gives rise to.  

I don't know about you, but I am astounded at how many people know the answer to managing this unknown, without qualification or questioning.

Curiosity needs to make a comeback, and fast before our minds come to a complete halt. Curiosity is the birthplace of our empathy, creativity and progress, we need it to evolve. It is the engine room of all human development and growth and it deserves a spot on the “starting lineup” of our thinking for all of our futures.

Let's be honest, if you are wondering what we can control here, it's our thinking, something I’d like us to take more command of than we have been recently.

Much love,

Scott

You are never too....... you

Whilst I believe in the notions of possibility like “you’re never too old”, “you're never too young”, and “it’s never too late” as useful reminders that we can be the drivers of our own experiences and opportunities, it's not what I am going to talk about.

What I am going to talk about is appreciating the uniqueness of people, their inherent good nature, determination, desire for love and belonging and most importantly appreciating the uniqueness of you.

You will likely hear me talk a lot about curiosity, what it means to be truly curious, what it looks like to park our own life experiences and frames of reference, to just sit and be curious, particularly of other people and especially about ourselves.

I believe that a lack of curiosity is completely stifling our human experiences and increasingly through social and mainstream media we get images and personas of what we “need to be like” in this world.

If we look at our younger generations today, so heavily influenced by these well laid expectations we will see a generation that whilst declaring their independent brilliance from the “less able” generations before them, are more homogeneous in their style, personal expression and behaviours than any generation before them. These expectations are increasingly forming the vacuumous removal of our souls. Taking away our individuality, increasing shame and self loathing and creating a baseplate of being truly alone and disconnected.

Many would argue that these generations have less judgement as a comparison to previous generations particularly in light of sexuality, gender identification and such things, but really they are more tightly fused together by the overwhelming expectations laid out before them. It has never been so incredibly unacceptable to not be seen to be accepting and yet, these generations are presenting a discomfort with self we have never really seen and heard before. I would also point out that one of the drivers here is the common expectation of being heard and understood, of having a voice. I’m certainly not suggesting that any of us older folk were any happier or more comfortable with ourselves.

All of this and yet, the type of bullying, isolation, ridicule and ultimately the level of mental health and suicide issues appear to escalate each year.

Confusing right ? In a time that we are so outwardly accepting, that we are expected to accept everyone but ourselves it seems.

In my life there have been plenty of experiences, decisions and choices, predominantly subconsciously driven, that have caused me to feel shame, regret and fierce judgement of myself, my flaws and failings. The double edge sword of self judgement whilst providing determinations for change also drives a highly unhealthy level of self criticism and poor self talk..

This has taken me a long time to learn, and a lot of reflection and it's something I would like to continue to share with you as I get better at figuring it out. I've always been hard on myself, always had a lot of judgement for myself. Whether that be being overweight as a young child, not as good at sport or school as I expected to be, or not as comfortable in relationships or meeting people as many did think. 

To some extent, this lack of self acceptance led me to a long journey of introspection and healing, but it began with plenty of “there's something wrong with me” and it's ending with “I love who I am, I forgive and understand the choices I have made, and I want to be a better human in this world by showing up more for myself, every day.”

Acceptance, love and connection begins with us. We have to lovingly accept the decisions we have made, the mistakes we have made and understand with compassion that at that time these may have been fuelled almost completely by past experiences and most definitely by a subconscious that is vigilant in its efforts to protect us from pain.

This vigilance however , oftentimes can keep us from ourselves, keep us from behaving in ways that are truly congruent with our hearts, all in the subconscious effort to keep us from harm.

Of course none of this is planned , but what we need to recognise is that what keeps us from harm, can keep us from love, what keeps us from danger, keeps us from opportunity, and what keeps us safe, can keep us at distance from our true selves, our authentic being, and the abundance of our souls.

It's taken me years to hack through this and appreciate that loving curiosity for ourselves is the pathway to truly accepting and loving ourselves. I've made plenty of mistakes, but I understand why I did and largely I understand that it was the best I knew how to do. It wasn't because I was a bad person, it was because I was afraid of being enough.

I am grateful, in some ways, that I was surrounded by enough gas lighting and lack of acceptance of me from others that the level of doubt was enough to kick off a determination for change. I was too sensitive, too emotional, too controlling, too assertive, too soft, too hard, too much. Where I have ended up, is in loving curiosity for myself, and what I now expect from others now, is nothing less.

All of this came up as I explored some differences with a friend the other night. I was not ashamed of my experiences, I was expecting to be heard and seen and I was happy to be vulnerable about my “weirdness” or as they so lovingly put it my uniqueness. This was a rare and beautiful exchange of appreciating differences, not expecting each other to adapt , but just expecting there to be curiosity and kindness for ourselves and toward each other.

Whilst this is a beautiful experience, as I reflect on it, I realised that I made it possible. I made it possible to bare my truth, fear, and do so in a way where I didn’t feel shame, in fact I expected acceptance, and I got it. 

I am making this more and more possible each day, I am bringing this light into my world, and I am doing it by learning to love myself more and more with an abundance of curiosity and kindness for myself. Something now I am being blessed with by others, because I have allowed it. This I thought was worth sharing, and it's worth remembering, that with loving curiosity and kind awareness, that you are never, too…. you.

Much Love

Scotty M

#menshealthweek

Why men don’t talk and how I am part of the problem

My original intention for this week was to talk about the struggle for men to talk about how they are feeling. We all know that boys raised before today have not been encouraged to open up, lack the skills and experience to express their true emotions, vulnerabilities, insecurities and fears. I feel I don't need to cover this. I also think this is decreasingly a men only issue.

As someone who is often praised for being vulnerable and brave by simply just sharing stories like this. I want to share what actually happened for me this week to explore the conditioning we, both men and women, are challenged by. I want to share how I am in fact part of the problem, so that maybe I can be part of the solution. 

It's perfectly normal to grieve loss, it's perfectly normal to feel sadness, but what isn't acceptable is to lose 3kg in 4 days, isolate, reject all but a few attempts to connect and focus my energy on the suffering of others, whilst not actually dealing with my own.

It's not normal to not eat, sparingly speak and not ask for help.

Oh how very manly and stoic, how incredibly unhealthy and potentially dangerous. This past week, I believe my focus on others was definitely empathetic but was also a means to avoid focussing on myself, my feelings and my triggers. Herein lies the problem, herein lies the unhealthy conditioning, of not only not sharing how we feel but avoiding it by masking it in bravery, or courage or care for others. Why, because we have somehow invalidated our own feelings, often with shame.

The events of the previous fortnight had a deeply personal impact on me, not just losing a long term friend, although that is no small deal, nor seeing and feeling the uncontained grief of people I love. For me, well, the feeling I was feeling, well that felt selfish, unwarranted and I felt sure unwanted in the context of exactly what had happened and the people it has so closely impacted.

I managed to walk more than 60km in 4 days (rather repetitive in a 5km radius), to clear my head, and attempt to sweat out the tears. Thankfully my gym was closed, I am certain that I would have done myself an injury, as I tried to push out this emotion as if to exorcise it with exhaustive strain and effort. I wanted the feeling out of me and I felt unable to show myself the empathy or care I actually needed. 

This lack of self love, this lack of self care, and this desire to “walk it off” was indeed not a pathway to recovery or to addressing the core of my feelings. (big shout out to Melonie Taylor for my slap upside the head on managing my parasympathetic nervous system)

I didn’t want people to tell me they were worried about me, I was fucking worried about me. Sympathy doesn’t help, it doesn’t serve us and most of all, for fuck sake don’t add yourself to my reasons not to focus on me. Sure, tell me you’re worried about me and watch me pacify you, reassure you and manage you, to calm you down and get you off my fucking phone. 

“Empathy heals shame; sympathy exacerbates shame. We don't want people to feel sorry for us; we want people to be with us.”

― Brené Brown, Men, Women, and Worthiness: The Experience of Shame and the Power of Being Enough

I didn't want to reach out to my mates who would be only able to relate to the surface level happenings of my heart with doses of “yeah that sucks mate”, “chin up bud” or some other misguided and unhelpful bullshit, so I didn't reply. Why would they be unhelpful? Because I wouldn't actually allow them to know what was really happening for me.

I didn't want to share the shame that I felt for my own level of connection with what had transpired, I didn't want to be selfish, nor did I want to feel ashamed and yet my own little magical mystery tour of the mind was an incredibly painful re-lived experience. A mental regression I never thought truly possible. A time-travel of trauma and unhealed exhaustion of my consistent choices for alone and isolation when I am so knowingly aware of the potential damage of this pattern.

I am lucky on two counts. At a particular point in time, I was broken enough to ask a neighbour to come and sit with me. I don't even know what we said, I just couldn't sit in any more isolation and for my own grounding I needed someone there.

The second count is that I am blessed to have a friend that knows all of my journey, knew exactly what was going on for me and so lovingly continued to check in and allow me to connect with my actual feelings. (I love you Suz, thanks)

The week was a perfect storm. Lockdown, my daughter away, me alone and far from friends who were hurting as I watched the live streaming of a friends funeral, alone in my backyard. I took the opportunity to retract and withdraw into myself, with my shame, the shame of what felt like a selfish connection. One which I believed no one would understand, that wouldn’t be welcomed or much less understood.

I am an expressive person, someone who talks openly about my feelings and emotions, but when shame came knocking and I assumed that people could not connect with, nor have empathy for my own challenges, I shut down.

So why did I feel it so important to share this? I am not saying that shame is everyone's reason for withdrawing, isolating, but I have a hunch it plays a big role, and shame I believe is the silencer for our broken and trapped hearts.

We are supposed to address shame with empathy, but if we can't have it for ourselves nor if we believe it's possible from others, we are alone. We mustn't be alone, and we must find an empathy for ourselves beyond the conditioning of us feeling that our emotions must be situationally valid for others, for all that matters is how we actually feel.

Our feelings must be held with loving care, beyond shame and with enormous doses of empathy, for when shame gets in the way of expression, it shuts out all possibility for care, for light, for love. Something we all must be so very aware of.

I spoke about shame and shaming last week, and in 2021 many people are likely to feel or experience shame, even though their lives are impacted by circumstances well beyond their control. Should people feel shame when they have not erred? Should we allow shame to be the dominant narrative of this pandemic? or can we all agree it's the essence and the fuel of unhealthy isolation and the opposing force of necessary empathy and connection.

Right now vulnerability is everywhere, in industry, in households and in us individually, we must learn the difference between sympathy and empathy, how to show up for ourselves and others and to never get stuck with, or allow others to be left with shame.

Much love,

Scott

Why men are so [ ]

Well if men are looking for pointers on how they can improve or why it is they are not good enough, it's actually really easy to do, just put these four words “Why men are so” into a search box and scroll away. (yes I did the “Why women are so” search and it's not nearly as fruitful.)

Search “Why men are so”  and you will get words like :

[TERRIBLE]

[TOXIC]

[OBSESSED WITH SEX]

[BAD AT FRIENDSHIPS]

[STUBBORN]

[VIOLENT]

[EASY]

[OVER CONFIDENT]

[EMOTIONALLY UNAVAILABLE]

[FRAGILE]

[SIMPLE]

[UNHAPPY]

[LONELY]

If this was an Amazon review, you'd have to wonder why anyone would want to have one of these, let alone scrolling endlessly through dating apps trying to find the right one.

Man hating, Man shaming and Man blaming is on trend, it's really taken off and it seems to be gathering an uncontrollable momentum, but I wonder to what end? I would also question just how broadly this is actually supported.

I was once “partnered” with a chronic man shamer, so this topic is pretty close to home for me personally, which is why I was curious about it. Perhaps I have a view tainted by this experience, but here are a couple of my observations and thoughts on the issue.

Again I would highlight that our society has become accustomed to the loud minorities and I feel certain on reflection that the silent majorities would not agree with or like this.

It would appear that the necessary acknowledgment and rise of women to a position of equality, and yes it's both important and absolutely necessary, has to come at the cost of men, their esteem, and their apparently imperative degradation. 

But when is enough, enough? When will men have adequately paid the price for patriarchy, when will women stop using patriarchy as a way for the generic disdain and shame for men? When will the sexism and overt “beating of men '' be called into question, not only for its validity but for it’s actual purpose.

What is the desired outcome of man shaming ? 

What is it really achieving?

Is it working? is it helping?

When will we stop trying to use segregation as a means of attempting equality?, when the net effect of its overt expression is more likely to make men the enemy whether they choose to be or not. Have we not considered the logic that those men who don't submit to the endless barrage of criticism find themselves in staunch opposition of what is in fact a necessary outcome, equality. Not because they don't believe in it, just because of how it gets voiced.

Must we jump up and down declaring our differences in order to be viewed the same way? I'm not following the logic.

Why has it become culturally normal to see men as pathetic, moronic, entitled, emotionless and some would say immaterial, and how is it that the people saying this still pursue the company of men?

If we look at the stereotypes in mainstream TV, there is a clear message inherent in the characters of the likes of Homer Simpson, Peter Griffin, Al Bundy or Frank Costanza that men are not only fundamentally appalling fathers, but they are mindless and entirely selfish at every possible opportunity.

We have seen this from our leaders too, I remember Margaret Thatcher's quote: 

"If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman."

It was clearly important in her mind to destroy men in order to advance the influence of women. I guess she was leading the way, carving a path that many many women have followed. Some might find her quote relatable and yet it cannot be supported by fact or history. 

In her very own nation it was that bumbling alcoholic bloke, Sir Winston Churchill, who saved Britain's arse. Margaret had a short memory perhaps, but it's much more likely she felt, and it could be said, she learned, that attack was the best defence. I would suggest in her generation this was entirely appropriate, but is it still appropriate? Is it effective? Is it working? These are my questions. 

It's commonplace to hear comments like “your father is hopeless/useless/ridiculous” I am fairly certain this doesn't draw upon motivational theory for its methodology. 

The standard social gathering amongst couples will usually see man shaming front and centre. It’s a part of our cultural norm. You’re at a BBQ, and the incessant criticisms kick off:

• “Oh John is a hopeless handyman he can’t fix anything around the house”

• “John never does that” 

• “I couldn’t leave him alone with the kids”

• “He’s always late picking the kids up from school” 

• “Maybe we should just go with two grunts for yes and one for no”

I am imagining that despite John’s cautious and yet necessarily wise silence, he is not drawing positive energy from the experience.

Could you imagine that being flipped around?

• “Jen could burn a bloody fish finger”

• “God you should see her reverse parking”

• “You know what she did the other day”

Does the immediate retaliation from men happen often ? In my experience no, but I am sure that the wisdom of silence isn't universal. In my experience more often than not a man's retort is a shake of the head, an eye roll and a removal from the conversation. 

I am not saying that some men aren't publicly critical of their partners, I am sure some are, but amongst my friends we would sooner suck it up then react. We might have something to say in the car though. Which probably doesn’t come out like: “Why would you hurt my feelings and ridicule me in front of our friends, do you think i deserve that” and is more likely to come out in anger, layered above the obvious hurt something like  “what the fuck was that Jen?”, followed by hours of probable silence.

A top of this is confusion, as an example, many a cry for men to be different, to open up emotionally and be more expressive, and the criticisms that come when they do, such as Men Have No Friends and Women Bear the Burden (the wisdom of Harpers Bazaar). Effectively labelling emotionally expressive men as be EMOTIONAL GOLDDIGGERS, a drain and a burden to  women.

The point here is that it’s not always clear why men are being shamed, is the criteria fixed or fluid. Is the target actually reachable or is this a hopeless endeavour?

If this was a job interview good luck to the candidate in interpreting the position description.

I have heard mothers of sons declare that their son would never be like their father and they were making damn sure of it, but when that boy becomes a man will he agree with Mums views on Men ? and how will that actually turn out for that boy? Will he find himself in opposition to Mum?

I am not sure how we turn this around but I am certain that the first step for change is awareness and I do think we perpetuate a lot of this behaviour as a force of habit. A habit that lacks the consideration of impact nor from my observation any alignment to the objectives of equality.

What do you think ?

Gone…

Losing a friend to suicide is one of the most confronting things I think people can go through. For me this past Friday, it was a friend I’d known over 30 years. He was smack bang in my closest circle of friends, a fellow groomsman to my best mate, who himself right now is struggling to speak. This weekend has been so hard for so many of us.

This is my way of understanding, to write down the emotion and my feelings. I wrote it Saturday morning, it’s raw, the language is colourful but it is most definitely a real account of my feelings. I am hoping that sharing this just might help one person, change a thought, a perspective, an action, an intervention and change a life.

I got the call at 3.11pm

I was at the school gate

Hearing the uncontrollable sobbing

The distress, and the pain of my dear mate

All I could say was NO, fuck NO, and WHY

I buckle over in half

Holding my heart

As the tears poured out of my face

We somehow didn't hear but we were all here to listen

We somehow are left with your abandoned fate

Left here wondering fucking WHY mate

Did you forget how much we all love you?

Did you lose all sight of us?

We told you we were there for you

We knew that you were flat

We knew you were doing it tough

But there’s no fucking way we could contemplate

That you,

You'd have it end like that

We know it gets too much

Holding it all in

Most all of us men do this

And unspoken, unshared and un-held

It seems impossible to get in

Of course, we feel guilt

Even thousands of miles away

I wish I got a chance

To tell you how much we love you

And how much we want you to stay

We all want to remember you

For the stunning man, you are

For the guy who makes us laugh

For your love, and connection

For your passing and beloved smartarse

The bloke who's warmth who's love, beamed across a field

A man we were most convinced

Had a heart of immeasurable scope

And now we are all left wondering

How we could have helped you to cope

For we all feel so empty

We have loved you for so long

There’s a hole in our hearts

Where you used to belong

We wonder if we could have done more

Heard more, known more

We keep thinking about, what it is we didn't see

But it’s over

And there’s no fucking shouting

No turning back from here

No last chance to look at your smiling face

To buy you another fucking beer

It’s a heavy burden,

and it’s killing us, guys we have to fucking talk

To feel so much and say so little, it exhausting

We have to just try and fucking share

We have to have faith, that so many care

We know there’s a point when our alone has us convinced

The self-imposed imprisonment and isolation

We have to jump in front of it

And stop this fucking horrible insurrection

We have to stand for together

And fight against the withdrawal

We have to know at points in time

We can lose sight of how important

We are, and how loved and cherished too

We have to fight a mate slipping inside himself

We have to stay with you

If you feel a mate slipping away

Grab him, and hold him close

Fight him if you must

And hold that space for him

Because once we let him drift away

The outcomes are all too often fucking grim

If your mates lost control

If he feels he's lost the race

If he's sitting deeply in his shame

With that expressionless face

Put your arms around him

And stay as long as you must

Because no one, no fucking mate ever

Should ever so pointlessly turn himself into dust.

We love you Ray.

The Silence of Perfection

Well 2020 was some ride that's for sure.

So much so, that on reflection, there was so much of it I didn't believe for myself, it was kind of hard to comprehend.

It's hard to say what happened really, my business world went to custard during the pandemic and the pressure was insane. I had clients who didn't pay bills, and the ingestion of the stress of other clients. I was in my own bunker, but somehow in so many others as well.

There was a chance opportunity to reinvent what we did, and we grabbed it with both hands, almost crazily, because there was no way I was going to lie down in this pandemic and become a statistic, there was no way I wasn't going to fight or die trying.

There's a craziness to this, and at many times I questioned my sanity but the work was important. We could figure a way to help Australians who have and will suffer at the hands of the economic disaster before us. If I am to be nothing else, I would like to be useful, helpful and loving.

It was not something that happened overnight, in fact, our foray into the social services sector took 228 days from the first meeting to our final endorsement as a solution provider. A tiring and seemingly never-ending 228 days where self-doubt kept raising its hand, the constant defence was a narrative of belief and sanity checks were a common occurrence. We backed ourselves, our team with such incredible conviction believed in what we were doing, and we stuck at it. It was brave, it was gallant and a lot of the time it felt a little insane.

We launched a solution to the sector, one designed to ensure that Australians would get the help they needed when and where they needed it, and it was good, and celebrated and saw me do my first ever National TV interview in October - my world was spinning out of control in some euphoric exhaustion, and effort that was well recognised with the exception of more tangible evidence.

Toward the end of the year, I giggled about the people wanting to interview me for our alleged success. Truth is, if it wasn't for Job Keeper, wow, I don’t even want to think. All through this time, stripped bare of all ego, we kept showing up authentically with the intention of helping others, when in fact we could have done with some help ourselves.

At the end of the year, as kind of a naturally birthed expression, I started a blog to share some very personal experiences in the hope I could also help others in a different way. At the time, I had no idea whether my musings would matter to others, but it felt real and I just went with it, there was a momentum to the madness.

Then I started getting interviewed about my blog, and it was rather surreal. I feel what I feel and think what I think but it was resonating and I found myself in grateful disbelief. I allowed myself to be truly seen for myself, and people liked it, this at times was emotional and overwhelming.

Over this break, this past few weeks, all of this was hard to take in. When I stopped and thought about it, I was not sure what to make of it.

I am also feeling through the “imposter syndrome” of writing a book, which I have been doing over the break. Not exactly straight forward as I constantly questioned, well who cares about you, your experiences and your thoughts. This was an experience that at times seriously made me regress emotionally, and it was agonising.

I don't want to stop doing what I am doing but, with a bit of space and time, it was hard to figure where I got to and how I could re-engage at the same velocity, momentum and with the same level of authenticity. I wasn’t sure how to get back on the bus. Reflection instead made me self conscious, made me question, can I do this? can what I say and do really matter as much as I wanted it to? Can I show up in 2021 and keep going, the same way, with the same raw intentions, the same unbridled honesty, the same ability to throw caution to the wind and let my heart speak so very loudly as it did before?

This is what I wanted to share. The level of self-doubt, disbelief and ownership had me questioning, do I fear success? And if not why am I so fucking uncomfortable right now.

Writing this first article of 2021, and what it would be about has been on my mind since Christmas Day. So best I can muster is just to again show up as me, share the fear of my imperfection, the trepidation with which I skulk back on this metaphoric stage and say, hi, it’s me again, do you still see me? Do you still hear me? Does it still matter?

I really do want what I do and say to matter. I want to ensure what I do is purposeful and meaningful and I have been trapped in the disbelief that this seemed to be so last year and against a backdrop of what felt like insanity I had no idea how to replicate the experience.

And then, with the help of a friend I realised. You're overthinking this, you just need to show up as you and hope that this is enough for just one person, because that is enough, you are enough.

“Healthy striving is self-focused: "How can I improve?" Perfectionism is other-focused: "What will they think?”

― Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

I mentioned in a previous article, about the stories we tell ourselves and ironically, I had those old stories playing this past few weeks. “Who do you think you are, mate?” The fact is I was caught up in what people will think of me, what will they come to expect of me and I forgot that I got here in the first place by just showing up authentically and not being too worried about that stuff.

So I have decided. That I am me, and I am here to show up as me, for myself and for others in that order. That I am someone who cares very deeply for others and if I am being true to self, then I am prepared to be judged, mocked or even ridiculed for it.

So here I am, me, and I am back, in a role with no stunt doubles, a role where I just play myself. Because it's enough.
Happy New Year beautiful people.

Much love,

Scott

Silent Nights; alone at Christmas

Christmas is a time for spending time with loved ones but for an increasing number of us it's a time where being alone gets seriously loud.

It's Christmas Eve, and I wanted to remind you all that if you are alone, you need not be. If you are with family, spare a thought for the many people that may be alone this Christmas, and make an effort to make a difference to just one person.

For me personally, as a single father, I have an unfortunate arrangement with my daughter’s mother, that we alternate Christmas Days with our daughter. This, of course, is ok when we don’t take our daughter away as when on an off-year we would at least get a couple of hours that day with our girl. When this doesn't happen though, Christmas with my daughter is reduced to a fleeting video call and that's it.

I dread those years, without my daughter. My direct family lives some 1,800 kilometres away and even if I go there on an off-year, being without my daughter at Christmas is extremely painful.

I grew up in a family where Christmas was a big deal, my grandparents would throw elaborate parties for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve and Christmas Day was always spent with the extended family, every year, we were all together, without fail.

Against that backdrop, a Christmas alone is potentially more harrowing for me. Sitting alone, contemplating life, and my aloneness, thumbing through social media posts, hoping to hear from friends who are rightly occupied with their families.

It's like a huge pit in your stomach, waiting for the day to pass, the shops to reopen, your friends to be available again and for the whole damn thing to be over with as fast as possible. For me personally, I have experienced having negative feelings toward myself as if being alone at Christmas means something about who I am and my value in the world. Crazy thoughts like this only really come up because being alone on a day when it feels like almost everyone is together, can make you feel different, at odds and isolated from the world.

This is where shit can get real, and real ugly for people who are alone on Christmas Day.

This time of year is significantly troubling from a mental health perspective.

Loneliness is something I know, often because it was a choice I made, to isolate myself away from people and things. This was a significant issue for me 7 years ago and the result was a very unhealthy state of mind.

The fact is the world over 23-30% of all households globally are single dwelling households, with only one human present.(in Australia that number is 25%). Atop of this up to a quarter of children live with a single parent, only some of who share the festive season, either alternately or in part with their ex-spouse, leaving them alone and/or without their own children at least for part of not all of the festive season. The very time you most want to be with your kids.

This year my daughter and I are alone together in Melbourne, something that was mostly circumstantial. My daughter was super upset about not seeing the extended family this year and of course, worrying that her mum will be ok and not alone. 

Thanks to the advice of a beautiful friend I inspired my daughter to work with me on establishing our very own Christmas traditions, and now the home whiteboard is awash with our menu, games and gifting routines. Atop of this, of course, is my now demanded annual Christmas Riddle routine (last year's inset, a tradition I share as my daughter loves it so much). 

It doesn't take much to get my daughter to swing into action and I can assure any of you who will work for her in the future (and I reckon some of you might), she is a laser focussed leader who is as thoughtful and compassionate as she is demanding. (this might be useful to remember for your future interviews)

Now, we have a big couple of days planned of baking and roasting and games and silliness, it will be a blast. She will also hang out with her Mum for a few hours on Christmas Day, so she is happy and we will have a ball this year.

Loneliness is increasingly known as the silent killer in our society and I write this today for one reason only:

If you know anyone who lives alone or is a single parent who may not be seeing their children this year, please make contact with them and check in on what they are up to.

Call them, invite them over, let them know you are thinking about them. Make the time to make someone else feel connected. Help make sure they do not feel alone and isolated. Share that spirit of Christmas with some purpose, empathy and action.

There are way too many, having way too many silent nights these next few days, please be thoughtful and give the gift of your presence. A simple gesture may make a huge difference for someone, please be that difference.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Much love,

Scott

Man-erability - how men should be allowed to be vulnerable

As usual this is just an opinion piece, and I welcome and encourage your views.

I was on a date recently and a woman said to me “I need to know my man has balls”. Whilst this is not a startling viewpoint, nor was it a complaint about me, I of course couldn't help but think to myself how uncanny this was, as I would solidly prefer that “my woman didn't have balls”.

These kinds of statements or signals continue to reinforce a view of what or who man must be. They continue to reiterate the need for man's steely resolve, his need to be the warrior, his need to be a fierce protector and most of all his need to be brave.

But is the common man brave enough to be himself? Is he allowed to be? Does he believe he is allowed to be? And what does bravery really look like?

Being Brave according to Brene Brown, the go to author on Vulnerability, is simply about showing up and being unashamedly our authentic selves. It is about hard conversations, setting boundaries, asking for what we want, being courageous in our expressions, owning our imperfections, asking for help, talking openly about our feelings and emotions.

“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.”
Brene Brown

So is Man brave? Is he allowed to be? Do we want him to be? When he is in fact brave, will we see him as weak, overly emotional, or heaven forbid “without balls”.

It is way past time that we as a society reach into the root causes of “Man's lostness”, a topic I spoke about last week.

It is way past time that every single one of us in society got super honest about our expectations and the extent to which they reasonably enable men to be pure expressions of themselves.

As I mentioned last week, I am largely a product of a therapy-athon, being called on my bullshit, having my ego and my misguided expressions of alpha questioned on a fortnightly basis. This is a gift I have chosen for myself, but that is because 7 years ago I reached a point of no return, it was either to opt out or fundamentally change who I was in the world.

I don't want men to get to that breaking point, because the stats don't lie and we don't always choose ourselves. 

Make no mistake this is difficult work and we cannot require all men to do what I have done, for the very simple reason that we want sweeping change for the mental health of men, and we want it now. 

The answer IS NOT for men to suddenly and collectively embark on regular therapy. It’s not something I would discourage, but to require it, is to admit defeat in the happiness and sanity of our men.

In order for this to occur, it must be allowed, by both Men and Women. 

For you blokes out there it means:

1. Asking your mates for truth, how they really feel.

2. Making them feel safe in that by sharing your own truth -  it may not land at least the first time, but you’ll be pleasantly surprised how welcome these discussions are. I always am.

3. Sitting in the discomfort of the spoken truth of your friends without judgement.

4. Sitting in the discomfort of trying not to solve those problems but just ensuring your Mate is heard.

5. Sitting in the discomfort of the judgement that may come your way (I will explain)

6. Encouraging your mates to say more 

7. Letting them know that you and your listening are there whenever and however they need it

Men need to talk, and you blokes are on the hook to allow it. Just to reiterate, it won't be comfortable. It won't feel normal for a while, but we all need to talk so very badly and we must as Men support each other in this very foreign practice.

Now for my explanation. I lead a lot of these discussions amongst my mates, and it comes at a cost, but a price I am willing to pay. When I am open and vulnerable with my mates, I am trying to lead them to be the same way with me, but it doesn't always land. 

A lot of my mates, particularly those that have not stuck close through this last 7 years give me the vibe that all of this expression is surely a byproduct of a middle aged melt down. For the blokes that are in my circle regularly it takes them a while to figure out that I am not crazy, I am just passionate about us not dying trying to be something, or killing ourselves when we no longer want to try.

For you Women (and Men) out there who are partnered with Men. It's time to make a call, and here are some truths.

If you say you want a man who can express his emotions then be prepared for a man that can admit his flaws, show “weakness”, be frightened, be outspoken about his needs, and awkward in these expressions, at least for a while.

He will not show up and be an eloquent expert in discussing matters of the heart. He will be awkward, nervous, tentative and clumsy and all of it needs to be allowed, so that he can get used to bravely sitting in himself and speaking his truth. It all needs to be allowed. 

It's time to question your judgements. For the record I have been accused of being “too emotional” in a former relationship, against what measure I am still unsure.

Encourage him to try, and keep trying, but dont push, let your man find his feet and when he does remember that this man is the man you wished for, and yet this man will be unfamiliar to you and something you will have to learn anew to be with.

To wrap up, I know that these truths as I call them above do not apply to all, but simply to many. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this and your experiences with Men and Women in their journey to be heard and to soften the fuck up. #softenthefckup

Much love,

Scott

The Heart of a Man

“Be a Man”, “Don’t be a pussy”, “Man Up”, these are words we heard as boys growing up in the 80’s. Interestingly there was one major omission - the actual definition of what it meant to be a Man.

No one ever told me it would be unacceptable to cry or express and talk to my emotions, to talk of my emotions with other Men, to ask my Mates for support in matters of the heart. We just learned it, we just learned it wasn't the done thing and that it was somehow more acceptable to suffer in silence, to close down and remain alone with our feelings.

The other thing is that no one ever told me that the more I “Manned up” the harder it was to truly connect with and express my emotions. 

Having looked at a number of scientific studies, It turns out us Men are indeed human and have no lesser capacity for emotion than women, but yet limited tools on knowing how to express it, talk to it, feel it, share it safely with another man or woman without judgment or the fear of it. God knows, most of my generation didn't have fathers that showed us how.

Men not only feel all of these emotions, but because of society's constructs of what it means to be a Man, Mens emotions get trapped, stuck inside their hearts, hearts very often full up with unresolved pain and regret. The result, anger, atop of a deeply buried pain, anger as an expression of hurt, an expression that further distances man from what he truly needs. This layer of anger needs to go, so that man can reach into his heart and its lovingly pure articulations that too seldom see the light of day.

For the few Men that are drawn to expressing our feelings, we can sometimes exclusively share these with women, something women complain about as being “draining”. Draining because we trust few with these feelings and generally try and do all of our expressing with one person, one woman, generally our partners. In this instance women also feel that it is overwhelming because an emotional man is a rare expression they are not used to. This rather clumsy, “Man Shaming” fuelled complaint was featured in Harpers Bazaar in May 2019 in an article titled: Men Have No Friends and Women Bear the Burden, believe it or not claiming to be concerned about men and their need to access therapy. I think my point is made here.

I will agree that this can be a legitimate complaint, no one woman or person can hold all of the emotions of another, it's a big gig. I would also say that women find this even more difficult because they are in the emotional corners of so many, a concept men struggle to contemplate. It’s interesting however, that the forever desired emotional man doesn’t appear to get the fan fair you might expect from the women who have also said they always wanted a man like that.

For the rest of the men, their women don't get to see the expression of heart as they are closed off and alone in their emotion, a huge barrier in connection. This is more loudly pronounced when man is in the midst of struggle, something so many men face right now because of this pandemic.

The isolation of man and his heart is a raging issue, one that is statistically frightening, the degree to which man is truly lost in his purpose, and is increasingly losing his will to go on, to live. This is something that MUST be resolved by all of society, by both men and women. 

Women & Men alike, have a critical role to play here to help us start to find a path back to our hearts and the starting is so very important.

We are lost, we struggle to understand the expectations of Man, and we in many cases feel so desperately alone with the responsibilities we are drawn to, to provide, to protect and to serve and the ones that are demanded of us in the ever changing mix of expectations we continue to fail to understand to any great degree of comprehension. Made even harder because we don't talk too much about it. 

The age old cries of men past, my father and his father, resignations that women are too hard to understand, and that we will never figure them out, that we are better off holding a can of beer and shaking our heads has set my generation up so poorly for the appropriate rise of women’s identification and respect and now unfortunately an often misplaced aggression and assertion. Now we find ourselves in a society with so many women that are expert proponents of misguided masculinity themselves. Further exacerbating the lostness of men.

My generation, we watched our mothers battle for equality in a world of misogyny that none of us understood and importantly, none of us agreed to. Yet in my career, I have had many conversations with females that worked for me that went something like this “Jen, I am not your father, I am not even my father, so why don't you get out of my grill and know that you will be judged here only for the work. You want to throw that anger about, I get it, but call your fucking dad and keep that shit pointed at its source”

Don't misunderstand me, Sexism is lived, alive and passed on through generations and my generation has had to actively work on omitting the misogyny of our fathers under a barrage and sometimes a shit storm of emasculation and misplaced aggression.

And thus we are lost, in great numbers, we are lost.

At our best we are drawn to chivalry and protection, at our worst we are drawn to keeping people at distance and being disrespectful, all in the poorly expressed hope that at distance we can avoid hurt. Man has a heart, and it is abundant, and yet it is too often alone, poorly expressed and misunderstood.

As Eric Fromm states in his thought provoking book “The Heart of a Man” for which the title of this piece is an expression of respect; 

“Man's heart can harden; it can become inhuman, yet never nonhuman. It always remains a man's heart. We are all determined by the fact that we have been born human, and hence the never ending task of having to make choices. We must not rely on anyone's saving us, but be very aware of the fact that wrong choices make us incapable of saving ourselves.”

This book was first written in 1964, and it clearly should have been heard by the beer swilling, objectifying, misogynistic men that followed. But alas, here we are.

I write this piece as a call for Men. I can tell you that Men want to talk and need help in learning how to. They need patience and love, not eye rolling and judgement. They want connection, desperately, without the tools or capabilities of knowing where to start. 

For me it's taken 5 years of therapy to feel incredibly comfortable expressing my heart to both men and women. I want to remind you though, that the man who went to therapy those years ago, was very broken and had already had contemplations of leaving this life some years earlier. 

So I ask, let's not let any more men get to that point, let's not let the pain in men get that loud, because not all of us choose to live and tackle the pain head on, and too many of us choose to opt out, more and more every year.

Men can no longer feel shame for feeling vulnerable or weak, men can no longer feel ashamed for wanting to be held and heard and every single one of us in society has a responsibility to help men in this realisation.

The heart of a man, in its natural expression is profound, it's important and it's necessary it finds its freedom. To get here, many men need help, from their mates, from their partners and their families, to lose the layers of misguided choice and stand true as the beautiful human beings they are capable of being, for everyone's sake, particularly their own, but they can not any longer be left alone with such struggle.

Get around them, its well past time that we all support Men to “Soften the Fuck Up” and speak of and with their hearts and for you blokes out there, its time to hear your mates, without bullshit expressions of “you’ll be right mate”, “chin up bud”, because these shut a man down from the opportunity to be necessarily heard.

Much Love,

Scott

Living beyond belief: understanding the stories that don’t belong to you.

What’s your story ? What shapes your decisions ? Are they all your thoughts and beliefs ? or, Did you learn them from others along the way ? Importantly , do you know which thoughts belong to you and which thoughts were bestowed upon you by the people who most influenced your life and your thoughts early?

2020 has been a challenging year, particularly as a small business owner in Melbourne, under one of the world's most stringent lockdowns. It has been cause to dig deep emotionally and ponder the very real possibilities of epic economic ruin that is mostly out of my control. This level of uncertainty and lack of control has been incredibly stressful, exhausting and a challenge of which I personally have never encountered before. (and I am a long way from alone here). Seriously, I have imagined myself laying in the fetal position under the Christmas Tree many a time, and the thought is actually quite soothing.

Because of this my “old stories” have come up loud for me, sometimes it feels like they are sitting on my right shoulder, yelling in my ear about what all of this could and might mean.

I grew up in a relatively privileged environment, but one with a little twist. A private school student, from an overly generous family, I wanted for nothing as a kid. Yet, where I went to school, struggle was all around us, some of us literally running to our homes after school after the threats of having the “shit beaten out of us” for being those “pussies with the blazers and ties”. Struggle was real, opportunity was believed scarce, people were tough, bruised and they were battlers, many of whom resented achievement and ridiculed those of us that strived for it because apparently we were “up ourselves”.

As a kid who was thoroughly engaged in sport the single worst thing that could happen to you is if you made the local paper for an achievement - because the shit storm that followed was horrific - almost enough incentive to stop trying. I was a particularly sensitive kid, so this bothered the crap out of me, particularly in high school, where unfortunately the accolades and the ensuing verbal abuse came thick and fast. Sometimes when I hit the paper, I used to pretend to be sick and try to get out of going to school, because I just couldn't face the barrage of bullshit.

This mindset, the one that I was surrounded by, brought some core beliefs and stories that to this day I detest, and yet they live in me, particularly when I am under stress.

They are:

• “You can't trust any bastard - no ones got your back”

• “Life is hard, so buckle up buttercup”

• “You work your arse off and take what you can get, because that's all there is”

• “You put up with shit behaviour and bullying if it means surviving”

• “You're not all that. Who do you think you are, mate?”

This year, I feel I have been the bravest ever in my life, I have faced into an enormous challenge, believed in myself and took this baby on with every bit of effort, passion and purpose I could muster. I am utterly exhausted, still not certain whether I have won or lost, the scoreboard takes way too long to tick over in a pandemic, and the constant stress is a back breaking burden.

This year I have heard all of that past talk from my formative years, the imposition of imposter syndrome, the noise of negativity and self doubt and I’ve had to work my arse off to re-centre and audit the noises in my mind. The incessant calls of : “you're not good enough” , a mindset I have worked so very hard to omit from my psyche this past 7 years has come back to haunt me, time and time again.

“G’day dickhead, now hop off that fucking unicorn you are sitting on and get real mate, you’re not all that”

To these constant calls from my own neural network of nightmares, files I wish I could delete forever, I have had to stand firm in my resolve and say “You know what, you deadshit bogan, I am all this, so piss off, you don't belong here anymore”

This is what I’d like to share here; These voices in our head, these thoughts that do not serve us, are very often not ours. We didn't create them , they are not for us, but instead have crept into the bloodstream of our brains like the viral infections they are.

What has helped me is a constant reconciliation of ownership. Where is that thought from? Is that really my thinking or an echo of my past environment? Do I really believe this or was I just told to?

To make a difference, a difference to ourselves and our lives, we must change our minds and align them to the thinking that will serve us, drive us and support us in achieving what we desire.

We must place ourselves in the driver's seat of our thinking, understand when shadows of the past put us into autopilot and send us careering off the road we have chosen for ourselves.

I share this because it's real for me, it's what happens for me, and I have fought this hard to continue to be a stand for myself, everyday. I also believe that I am very unlikely to be alone with this challenge.

Many of us are infected by our past, our relationships, experiences and environments and it's super important we don't claim thinking for ourselves that no longer belongs to us and probably never did. It's critical that we stand up for us now and sever any ties to thinking that doesn't serve us and in fact was never ours to begin with.

“We are not our feelings. We are not our moods. We are not even our thoughts. The very fact that we can think about these things separates us from them and from the animal world. Self-awareness enables us to stand apart and examine even the way we “see” ourselves—our self-paradigm, the most fundamental paradigm of effectiveness. It affects not only our attitudes and behaviors, but also how we see other people.”

― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

I hope that this is helpful. Much Love, Scott.

Talking Vulnerability (live)

Here's something I thought I would never do - talking live on LinkedIn yesterday about my very personal journey. A platform more known for the careful positioning of "personal brand". What could possibly go wrong?
Thanks for the opportunity Scott Ko!
#softenthefckup #OpenMinds #ScottKo #Vulnerability #MentalHealth #Authenticity

The Curiosity of Connection

Ok, so a heads up for you. This is about relating to others, loving ourselves deeply enough to allow the love of another. If you've nailed that, well done, I am extremely happy for you. If you haven’t, do read on.

Good old connection, human connection.

It is the birthplace of our long-held pains and yet it is the destination for our healing. Now that's confusing.

It is in those moments of human interaction we seek desire, love, acceptance, belonging and being seen and admired for who we are.

Many of our fears, anxieties and insecurities happened with us in this very same place, in connection, in these moments of wanting or needing something from others that wasn’t given, was denied or even taken away from us.

The result, often a deep and buried pain that affects the next connection and the next one and how we show up, with more caution and trepidation and less of our abundant selves, just in case we get hurt again.

It makes sense, but it does us and our hearts so much damage, causes so much regret and sorrow and most of all entraps us in the unnatural state of “alone”, isolated from our own needs, a place never intended for us or our hearts.

It's understandable, that we remember going into that fire and it hurt and it often still does for years or decades until we find the desire and courage to allow the fire into our hearts again. The truth of which is harrowing for many, including me over the years.

I couldn’t figure a way to show up wholeheartedly, still nursing the breaks and cracks in my heart and placing many shields atop my chest to ensure no one could really get in.

For me this caused loneliness I couldn’t live with and something had to give. For me, there was so much damage and so many shields that the sweat and effort to remove them was a lengthy and strenuous process in itself.

But here is what I know, so far. We don’t go to that effort without motivation, and that motivation is often found in the same fire of connection that our pain was birthed in, an opportunity of connection or even reconnection with another.

For me, this process was difficult and it required determination and resignation for a life that wasn’t worth leading like I was. A life that had to change, had to be different and had to be full of love and not feeble gestures of connection I was not truly present for, most of me tucked away behind those shields.

So why is it that this fire of connection also heals?

It is in the throws of genuinely intentional connection that the pains reemerge.

It is in the desire of another, or love to whatever extent, that these fears and anxieties get loud again, there to drag you into the past, calling you to flee the present moment, reminding you of how much it hurt last time.

Yet, it is in this fire that we can heal. I believe our souls know this and our minds lose track or try and escape this reality, why? because it's hard work.

There are many who live in avoidance and hiding, away from the natural instincts we have for love, away from the harm of the flames. Pain etched so firmly in our minds it freezes us and holds us in time, a time that has passed and yet a pain that is still so loudly present.

When we know this, when we know ourselves in a way that we can acknowledge our reflexes, we can observe them and we can correct them we can begin an authentic connection. Believe me, it's often a stumble, not a waltz, but with intention and some courage we can heal ourselves and our hearts to a place of giving again.

This awareness or the need for it often doesn’t present itself until the experience of desired connection reappears, but the awareness is so very critical to that connection being what we truly want it to be for us and for us showing up as we are genuinely capable.

It is how we show up for ourselves, which means owning our own shit and baggage and claiming it at the carousel of connection. It is this awareness, that opens the door to the possibilities of our hearts.

This is reinforced by desire, a wanting, this is the home of determination to own our shit and work on it, in connection. Not to hate ourselves for it, just to understand why it's there, where it's from and that it only exists in our minds and memories and that it is not necessarily here in this very moment of the present.

Desire is the fuel that makes us lean into that terrifying discomfort of this fire once more.

Next, we need to bring curiosity, we need to be open to history not repeating, open to something very different, open to others experiences and possibilities, open to the fact that what we are looking for, we often have never experienced.

So very often we are looking for something we don’t fully comprehend and we need curiosity, lots of it, to continue to acknowledge the loss of our bearings. As a side note, if we find ourselves wanting something we had before (I’ve been there), you are in the wrong place, so “wrong way go back”.

With the fullness of curiosity, we can then make determinations of how we must be. This is where trust comes in, in ourselves and the process mostly, in those things we can control, like how we show up. We must also let go of any notion of controlling how others show up for us, we can just ask for what we want, and we must.

It's fundamental, that we knowingly ask for what we want and need, without shame or embarrassment and fairly in the expectation that it will be granted and that you are prepared to show up for them like this too. I could say "hold that space", but only to my girlfriends, for you blokes reading this, of course, I never say that. (ha ha)

This is the bravery of love and honest account in love, we have to acknowledge and own our old pains and importantly know that these are not our fault. We have to have the desire to lean in, into those flames, the ones that hurt us so very much.

We must remain in open curiosity for this place we find ourselves in, a place so foreign and we must stop and appreciate all of what is good in its essence, like a small child at a zoo, we must stop and stare, celebrating difference, to take in the beauty and rawness of its nature.

Then we must stand in our truth, in our needs and ask for the care and love we need to step into that fire again and ask for help where we need it. We must also be prepared to offer the same help and encourage the other to ask for what they truly want and need.

On this, know that anyone not prepared to give it isn’t a person worth going into the fire with. You deserve to be cared for, held, listened to and understood and you owe it to yourself and another to know what is real and now and what was then and there.

This is what I know, so far, of connection. This is what I know, so far, of what there is to do. To walk ourselves gently and lovingly through the scolding ruins of our past and ask for care, for a hand to hold on the way to something and someplace wondrous.

It is frightening at times, it is difficult, but on the other side of this fear, is a healing, a beautiful healing of our formerly broken hearts and as those pieces come back together, there is a deeply lived joy to experience.

So I say lean in and yet be very choosy about who with. They must be someone who can show up this same way, with the bravery and honesty I've described here.

But if they are capable, and only if they are, do lean in, I promise you its worth it.

Go well

Scott x

Just be yourself Dad

My cousin Ryan and I, just before setting off to play Baseball for QLD for the first of many times in my life (aged 12)

This is a 1st for me and a 5th for me.

It’s the 5th time I have written a personal blog.

This the first time it is an honest and genuine account of who I really am, and that has , for me at least, taken some doing.

All of my previous attempts came from a guy who believed, he had to show up how others wanted him to, so that he would be accepted, seen and good enough in the eyes of others.

This part of myself, the insecurities, doubts and feelings of fear an anxiety, drove me for years, they very near drove me mad. This part of myself was hidden, extremely well, behind layers and layers of ego, bravado, aggression and poor choices.

In fact, it was hidden so well that people thought I was over confident and some even thought I was conceited. This consistently took my breath away, and the incongruences of my heart and my actions got louder and louder, until I was broken open to get to right here, in this moment with you.

Little did I know that I had to accept and bring love and compassion to myself first, before I could genuinely make any expression of that soul, that heart and that spirit that lives inside of me.

In fact, the title of this post is down to me, a single Dad, going on a coffee Date a few months back and my beautiful little 11 year old daughter saying to me as I walked out the door, “Just be yourself Dad” which seemed a perfect expression of my stated intention here.

As placeholders for some of the thoughts and loves that have driven me here, I have begun by time stamping some pieces of writing I have done along the journey (I’ve done a lot), I may add more historic pieces too, but to own my story, I feel compelled to share these openly, how much can be decided later. I have planned this for a very very long time and the articles that are yet to be written are ideated in hundreds and hundreds of digital notes.

That said, I will take my time, and decide, with your help, what is relevant. I am genuinely hopeful that you join this community aimed at helping people to #softenthefckup .(people who know me, know that this is the only genuine way I can say it, so I do apologise if the title offends).

The title is a protest, I realised after thinking I invented it (I didn’t), that was a campaign in 2012, aimed at solving the mental health crisis that Australian men still face. I guess my idea is the same, except that it isn’t just for men, it’s for everyone and every orientation and self identity who is sick and tired of hardening up, and applying grit or as the Australian saying goes, to “harden the fuck up” to cope with the world the way it is experienced by many of us . I will not commit the same sins of hypocrisy I have personally experienced expressed on my journey. The clumsy, ill informed, unbalanced, foolish and ironically sexist expressions of equality; this is for everyone.

I’m still leaning into the discomfort and joy of being genuinely seen for me, and so I expect I will make some mistakes along the way too.

Now it is with so much joy and gratitude for myself, my determinations , persistence and resilience, I am here, to speak my truth, admit my mistakes, share my learnings and learn from you too.

I want to talk about the things.

I am by no means a perfect expression of my heart , but I am getting closer every day because I keep walking, I keep moving toward who I truly am. These days I do this with ever increasing doses of self awareness, honest account and love and self compassion for my imperfections.

I am proud of who I’ve become and I’m ok with others not accepting it, I am who I am, and I’m more and more happy with that everyday.

I’m proud of the father, human, leader, friend & humanitarian I am and I commit to continue to try and be each day.

My open intention for this conversation, is that it is for both men and women who believe that what the world is asking of them, is not actually them, people who have a strong desire to genuinely and authentically be happy to show up in life as they are, to continuously reduce the incongruences to self, required by the expectations of society. People who feel free enough to openly stand in their truth, their pain, their suffering, their regrets, their healing, their joys and the abundance of their souls.

Please join me in this conversation. I share it wholeheartedly, as an act of love toward myself and in the hope that the things I talk about here are of service to others, like you. All I ask of myself, or others so willing to join that conversation, is that bring a loving curiosity for all. That we have a default position going in; That we all are doing our best and that we understand that everyone else is doing their best, so I ask you to bring kindness and curiosity and enjoy the pleasant surprises afforded us by our well honed judgements.

Much Love,

Scott

I Human

This is a little piece I wrote in the 1st lockdown of 2020 in Melbourne. It was a call for courage, a call for resilience, a call for optimistically fuelled grit and determination. This time in Melbourne for me, had been both a nightmare and a gift. It provided some frightening financial possibilities that drove my anxiety wild and made my fears roar loudly.

This lockdown, touted the toughest in the World, was so difficult emotionally & psychologically, particularly for people like me, who essentially live alone 8 nights a fortnight.

It was also an opportunity to just sit in such solitary and lonely introspection, to relive and re-experience past pains, and to heal them, with compassion for self, and relentless pursuit of what is actually so, what is the truth, my truth. In the end, and theres no actual real, this has been a sprinted effort on the very long journey of falling in love with myself. #gratitude

---

Trapped in my unnatural state of isolation

My mind and I have travelled down some rugged terrain

Anchored in the basic need for survival

Ever vigilant about the costs and opportunity of ubiquitous struggle

Can I skilfully avoid being a victim of an ever threatening environment

Can I maintain a resilience of thoughts

Can I draw upon the thinking that leads me to prosperity

Can I avoid the threatening calls for me to resign to a demise

Can I draw deeply upon my spirit

My intentions

Can I with a heart, so full of love

Bestow a love toward my own self

So that I can, in fact, be of service to so many suffering

Can I rise above my own self doubt and insecurities

To take this challenge on

The epic battle of nodes in my neural pathways

Knowing that the power I can apply

Resides in the very same place as my own imagined enemies

Can I draw upon my heart

So that my child is left with the certainty of my bravery

So that my family can worry not a moment for my safety

And so that my community can be lead by the light I create in my own mind

Both light and dark are within me

And in the midst of this battle

I remain dedicated to a being that serves my victory

I continue to fight the darkness that I also possess

In the hope that new expectations of something more

Can propel us all to something better

I am as brittle as the glass through which I can see the world

As forceful and powerful as the the miracle of my biology

I am but a subject of my own enquiry

A result of my practice

An outcome of my desires

A force of my own reckoning

I am human

With love,

Scotty M

Gratitude

I was shown this video back in 2017.

What I have learned on my journey is that the practice of gratitude keeps us grounded, at peace and helps us keep a perspective for everything we experience in life, for our first world problems to be neatly boxed up in the category of nothingness. Also for those things we truly value like love, friendship, love of self, determination and spirit and the gifts of connection to be maintained in the highest regard.

I want to share this here, because it’s important to my healing, to the every beauty of our individual being, and its something I try and practice every morning, by writing or thinking about how bloody fortunate I am to be me, in this place and space, with my people.

Much Love

Scotty M

My Beautiful Daughter

I wrote this piece just after beginning my relentless commitment cognitive behavioural therapy. A practice I continue to get an immense amount of value from, particularly due to the divinity of my therapist who is so lovingly committed to her work and supporting my journey.

• I wanted to be a different human being than i was.

• I wanted to trust people

• I wanted to be authentic

  and brave, to have faith in myself

• I wanted to lose the toxicity that stemmed from my experiences and I couldn’t figure and

• I wanted to stop being so constantly driven by fear and anxiety and

• I wanted to stop behaviours that felt so incongruent with my soul
  

  and I wanted to do it all for my kid, who I wanted to have different and better experiences than mine, a wish I am hopeful that every parent has for their children.
  

  I wanted my effort, my suffering and my challenge to be in the name of her joy, her courage and her self belief, things that I had to, for whatever reason, earn and learn the hard way.

---

A cheeky grin

And that grazed shin

You throw yourself at it

Even if there's nothing to win

But you want in

And want to be heard

For much of this life so far

Seems so absurd

But curiosity and creativity combine

For we do not know which is yours and which is mine

But your figuring it out , too fast for my liking

Is a way of you blossoming , its my pride just spiking

You are a beautiful girl

And you have been zero to 6

One big ball of loving energy

Intensely focussed on specifics

Girl you make me proud

Even if a bit nervous

Your ability to negotiate

Seems so impervious

But it's just strong will, bound by your hopes

A life you see with immeasurable scope

And I wish for you to never change

To challenge and question

Your love of all things

It is your perfection

And I'm just Dad

Who's had it wrong and had it right

But my job is clear

To allow you to allow yourself a full flight

You my little angel

Are my guide to rewrite

That which I've mourned

And that which I regret

Are a way for you to allow yourself

The magic in you yet

Love Daddy

Dream

I wrote this with the help of a very dear friend, and beautiful soul, a high school buddy and today a man of which I am immensely proud , for he is a beautiful loving and generous father, a human I have always admired from the age of 14, and a person to this day I hold the utmost respect for.

I was doing my usual overthinking and reflection about life, about love, a discussion I openly shared with him and I was stuck on a line. We were hungover on his apartment balcony in Broadbeach, smoking cigarettes and musing life as we often did.

At this point my mate offered up a quote from Chief Crowfoot (1830 – 25 April 1890) of the Siksika First Nation and this piece was free.

“A little while and I will be gone from among you, whither I cannot tell. From nowhere we come, into nowhere we go. What is life? It is a flash of firefly in the night. It is a breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is as the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”

Chief Crowfoot

---

Dream it

See it in your mind, it is yours

Its like the little shadow chasing in the grass, loosing itself in the sunset*

Feel it

Like the sun warms your skin

Seize it

It is yours, keep clear that picture and hold close that feeling

Recreate it

Its like being alive twice

Take this day and cast your spell on it

If you can dream it, you can do it.

The empire of your future resides in your mind.

Write it

Your story the way you create your life

Take your creation, and write you a life of dreams Take that which you imagine and actualise

Let your dreams become your goals.

Believe it

You can write you a world today as if you are already moving about in paradise.

December 22, 2002
Love you PW