I just had an incredible conversation with Mandy Capehart on her podcast Restorative Grief. We got into something that's so vital for men, but rarely talked about with this kind of depth and honesty.
We explored how most of us guys are trained from a young age to get outside of our bodies. Stop crying, be tough, sit still for eight hours in school, ignore what's happening inside. And then that follows us into locker room culture, into the workplace grind, until we're just completely cut off from what we're feeling. For so many men I work with, the only emotion they're allowed to express is anger. Or worse, they grew up with volatile, out-of-control anger and now they're terrified to access any of it at all.
What I've witnessed time and time again, both in my own journey and in the men I work with, is that underneath all that supposed toughness is this massive well of grief. Deep anguish from the times we were dropped, ignored, bullied, felt alone or not enough. And when men finally get into a safe container where they're not being judged, where they can actually let themselves feel, it all comes up. Sometimes it starts as anger and transmutes into this raw, vulnerable release. I'll never forget my own first experience with this, just 15 minutes of somatic work in my first men's group in my 20s, and I was on my back weeping like a little boy, crying out "hold me, hold me, hold me." I didn't even know I'd been carrying that since I was an infant.
Mandy and I talked about what actually creates the container for this kind of opening. How seeing other men, especially men you might have labeled as "tough," fully grieve and feel changes everything. It rewrites the story. The guy who's built like an ox and works out all day breaks down and cries, and suddenly the other men realize, wait, I trust him more now. He's actually stronger for having done that. That transmission is powerful. It makes it easier for the next man to step in, and the next, and the next.
We also got real about what happens after the retreat or the workshop. That's actually the hard part. You go back to a world that wasn't on retreat with you. Your partner, your coworkers, your family, they're at a different frequency. Not everyone can receive you in that open place. Some people never will be able to meet you there because they haven't done their own work. And if they're not comfortable with grief in themselves, they won't be comfortable with it in you. So part of the work is getting clear about where it's safe to be boundaried, and then finding community and culture that can hold this new capacity in you. That's where men's groups become essential.
If you're a man reading this and you feel that pull toward something deeper, toward actually feeling what's in you instead of pushing it down, I'm here to help you find that. Check out my work at evolutionarymen.com or just reach out. This is the path.
