One Way Men Keep Themselves Stuck

All right. And welcome back. On today's episode, I want to talk about one of the biggest ways men often keep themselves stuck in their lives in ways they ultimately don't want.

The feeling of being trapped or stuck is one of the most painful experiences for men and one that often feeds on itself and causes even more pain. So what is it that we men do that exasperates this stuckness? Well, in short, we often tend to focus on soothing rather than healing. So we do this when there's something we're feeling, be it physically, emotionally, or spiritually, that is uncomfortable and makes us want to change our feeling state.

It's as simple as I'm currently feeling this and I'd like to be feeling that. So we'll find a way to soothe ourselves so that we'll feel better. For many men, this will involve alcohol, marijuana, porn, masturbation, tv, video games, sex, food, just to name a few. Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with any of these things, and they're often quite effective, but they really are just soothing us and not healing us.

So what's the difference? Let's start with soothing. Soothing is kind of a collection of strategies that try to make us feel better at a surface level. Soothing often focuses on the symptoms and almost always just provides a temporary relief. Soothing doesn't actually change any of the things that are causing our pain long term, but it does allow us to move away from that pain in the moment.

Healing, on the other hand, is, is a deeper and often slower process that is less about addressing the symptom and is more about addressing the root cause. That is, what's the context that's causing the pain or discomfort to arise in the first place by doing that, healing is more about creating long term relief and permanent change. Another way to think about this is that soothing generally takes us away from our pain, whereas healing actually invites us closer into it.

This is such an important distinction and really is the crux of then what allows us to keep feeling stuck. So we're having some kind of struggle in our life, it doesn't feel good, so then we choose to soothe ourselves. For me, it was porn, masturbation, addiction, food, and that would provide temporary relief. It would change my state. But what it wouldn't do is change any of the underlying structures that were causing these pains to come up in my life in the first place.

Healing. And this way, it actually invites us into our pain, makes us come to terms with what's actually happening in the moment. And until we fully feel the intensity of that emotion or discomfort, it's often very hard for us to take change and actually step into some kind of action. The thing I've seen time and time again is that when men slow down and actually come into contact with the depth of their pain, they fully touch it and turn towards it.

That's what often then inspires them to make a change. It's like, wow, I was so numbed out to this for so long, in a sense, I could stay in the endless hamster wheel of it. I could perpetuate it. I wasn't really feeling it fully then I could just numb it out and I could come right back to the same place tomorrow. But for me, in times of my life when I really allowed myself to connect to my hurt and pain, it almost always demands actual action in my life.

I can't do this anymore. This is so uncomfortable. Now I have to take some kind of action to change my work, relationships, health, you name it. And one of the defining differences between soothing and healing is that healing requires structural change, right? We can think of a couple cut on our skin. We might be able to grab a little painkiller, rub some ointment on it. Hey, it takes us away from the pain.

It numbs us out. We don't have to feel that discomfort, but it doesn't heal us in that case. It just takes time, right? It takes time for our body to kind of piece itself together. Or if it's an extreme injury, we actually do need to go in and get some stitches, right? Which is actually going to support that structure coming back together and making a change. Healing requires structural change, and that's scary, and that's confronting, and that's often hard.

And that's a place where it can feel overwhelming. I don't even know where to start. And so then a lot of men, rather than sitting in that overwhelm or the vulnerability of not knowing what to do, will just turn right back towards soothing. And so that impulse towards action will get numbed out or soothed over, and we'll repeat these patterns over and over and over again. Healing requires us to go into the pain, to become intimate with it and to look at our lives very clearly to get a sense of what's actually causing this.

Another crucial piece to this is another difference between soothing and healing is soothing in the way I'm talking about it today is often something we do alone, right? These are often behaviors or habits that we're doing by ourselves, which is very different from healing, which often involves other people, right? Changing our relationships, be they in work or intimacy or whatever that might be.

And a lot of healing, as I've talked about in this podcast, can only happen in the relational space, right? It can only happen when we're connecting to others. For so many men I know, the most, most damaging types of soothing they do are the ones they do in isolation. And that isolation can just intensify some of the discomfort we're already feeling, which then has us reach for those same soothing techniques even more.

So it can easily cause this kind of perpetual loop that keeps wrapping around itself of I'm not feeling well, so I'm going to do these soothing things. These soothing things keep me isolated and alone, don't actually help me change my life, so then I'm not feeling well. And boom, around and around we go, chasing our own tail to some extent. Whereas healing, particularly in the ways I talk about on this podcast, involving coaching or therapy or men's work, involves getting connected to other people.

And just getting connected to other people often does a lot to change our state, right? It can actually shift our nervous system from a over aroused sympathetic state or a totally shut down freeze state. Connection is often what brings us into the healthiest place our nervous system knows of safety, which is what they call ventral vagal. We get so many safety cues, like I've talked about, from connection and being in relationship. Those tend to get us to feel a little bit better.

And when we're feeling a little bit better, it's much easier to take action. So the thing about this paradigm is the more stuck we're feeling oftentimes the more we'll reach for soothing. And the more we reach for soothing, the more stuck we'll feel. This is where I see so many guys get it wrong. And instead there often has to be this, okay, I'm not going to numb out, I'm not going to soothe myself. I am going to become even more closely in contact with the actual sensations in my body right now, emotionally, physically, spiritually.

And as I turn towards those feelings and sensations, which can often be very uncomfortable, the magic starts to happen. I become liberated from that pain and that pain often causes me to take action. That action usually involves renegotiating boundaries, relationships, work, agreements, you name it. I see this one A lot with guys around dating and relationships in particular, right.

They feel like crap and so they turn to soothing. And the more they soothe, the more they feel like crap. Because they feel like crap, it's harder for them to go out and create the type of intimate relationship they really want. So then they feel lonely and turn towards the soothing, etc. Etc. What I often help men do is, hey, one of the things not a lot of people talk about, but if you want to improve your dating life, you have to change the structure of your life.

What's making you feel like crap? Isolation. Okay, so we need to get you more connected into groups, into social activities, with friends, with family, with co workers, fatigue or health. Right. I used to eat like shit. I used to stay up too late masturbating. Would I have energy to go out in the world the next day? No. So a lot of men have to take better care of themselves. Getting enough sleep, turning off devices, drinking enough water.

These are super basic things, but they really do matter and they take structural change, which is what makes them healing, not soothing. You actually have to change the structure of your life for healing to occur in these avenues. So again, the thing to note is that soothing is about making us feel better, whereas healing is about us creating a better life.

And it can be hard and it can be very challenging to do alone, which is why it's so much easier when, when you get connected, like I said, to coaches, to therapists, whereas I often talk about on this show, men's group. So if you're feeling stuck as a man, it's a good opportunity to do a little bit of an audit. Where do I tend to just go towards soothing rather than healing in my life?

And what would it take to, to heal? What kinds of structures and changes and support do I need in my life? Actualize these long term changes that will get to the root causes of all the discomfort I'm feeling in my life. If you want to get some support in that journey, definitely reach out to me at Evolutionary Men. Until next time.

If you're interested in working with me around dating relationships or your masculine presence in the world, just go to Evolutionary men. Apply.