Men: It’s Time to Focus on YOU
If you’re a man looking for therapy, I’d like first to congratulate your efforts and your willingness to begin the search. Whether you’re a man, woman, teen, or parent, choosing to seek therapy is a sign of inner strength. But for men, in particular, our culture today doesn’t make seeking support easy.
There is a well-documented history of how therapy was created as a place for women and people of color to have their hysteria and insanity cured. Male psychologists constructed it as a source for “fixing” problems of the mind. So it makes sense that the historical roots of therapy wouldn’t make men want to own up to similar issues.
Decades of calling out toxic masculinity and restrictive gender roles have led us to a somewhat more comfortable space for men to begin to ask for help, even if what gets us through the door is a relational concern.
To Thine Own Self…Seek Others’ Opinion?
So much of who we are and how we come to find out who we are lies in our relationships with others. Think about the first time you thought you were funny or had a sense of humor when you realized you were a patient person (or that you still need to work on it), or how you noticed that your emotions showed on your face. The thing that helps create our awareness of ourselves is others!
It’s not surprising that most of the men I see in my office seek to mend significant relationships in their lives. Whether it’s a partner, a family member, or a coworker, men find themselves when they realize they fall short in relating to others. Through their work in repairing relationships, they start the process of soul searching. The actual relationship that needs mending is the relationship with themselves.
As a therapist, I believe that connection is critical to living a meaningful, satisfying, joyous life. We need each other despite the Western world discourse of carving our path and being strong and independent. There is much to gain when we can look inside our soul instead of the spaces between us.
Exercising self-awareness is the key to consistent, long-lasting peace.
Cultivating Self-Awareness
Becoming aware of ourselves is often easiest by interacting with others. However, many exercises, reflective moments, and strategies can give us a view inside of our hearts. Most of this comes from deconstructing the data you’ve absorbed living in society as a man and will differ by the other identities you hold (e.g., sexuality, ability status, race, or education level). Before diving in, keep the knowledge that this list is not expansive, and the journey to self-awareness and growth is non-linear. I hope you take these suggestions as just some of how you can grow to appreciate, know, and love yourself more fully.
1. Take an inventory.
Not quite like an audit or checklist of qualities, but similar. Taking an internal inventory means allowing yourself room for introspection. While this introspection springs through storytelling (sharing your life’s narrative), it can also develop through unstructured journaling, voice memoing (there’s an app for that), or making lists.
Here are some thoughtful questions to begin: What am I seeking to know about myself? What kind of feedback have I received from others in the past or even now? What parts do I agree/disagree with? What do I wish others saw in me? Finally, how can I take a small step toward these qualities/behaviors/practices?
2. Explore messaging.
We are sponges from entering this world until the final curtain drops. Along the way, we pick up messages about how to be a man, what to act, look like, express, and present ourselves. Exploring your messaging is a step beyond the inventory found in the first step. It can come from questions such as: How were emotions expressed in my family? Were my big feelings met with love or frustration? What did I learn about my gender and how to behave? What felt limiting to me as a kid or adult? How much of these messages have I taken with me into adulthood?
3. Take your self-compassion temperature.
Exploring messaging and taking an inventory can be difficult; these exercises may bring up a variety of emotions (anything from anger to disappointment to sadness). This step is just a reminder to be kind and to breathe.
4. Consider your strengths.
Celebrate yourself here. What is it that you like about yourself? We often use adjectives to describe what we bring to others, such as kindness, patience, attentiveness, etc. (recall back to what I said about how we learn through others). Consider what traits you like about yourself that are independent of others; hardworking, tenacious, resilient, soulful, intelligent.
5. Honor your areas for growth.
On the other side, consider what opportunities you have for growth and honor them. Our brains are programmed and conditioned to seek out the danger in our environments, which encompass our shortcomings in handling them. Be gentle with how you pick yourself apart and keep swinging back to your strengths as you do so. Do these areas for growth align with your messaging and self-compassion temperature?
6. Become open to being a construction zone.
Construction zones are messy. There are people everywhere, and sometimes the workers are focused and on time, and others take an extended lunch break. So respect the parts of you that need a break and the other majority that are just working hard to create something beautiful within you.
Employing these principles will be helpful for you, no matter whether you do them alone or in the presence of an attuned therapist. When we work together on your relationship with yourself, you will notice your other relationships improving just as much. To learn more about how individual therapy might help you or the men in your life, visit us for more information at www.havenfamilytherapy.com
