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