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