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Key points
- The men’s mental health crisis requires men to stop compartmentalizing and outrunning their feelings.
- Genuine, sustainable growth requires tolerating momentary pain to transform what blocks the heart.
- When you aren’t afraid of your inner world, that is true power.
Co-authored by Dr. Karima Joy
Maybe you can sit in an ice bath, but can you sit in the discomfort of your inner world? How long can you tolerate being present with the feelings you avoid or compartmentalize?
We are not here to deny the value of cold plunges and podcasts—we appreciate them, too. In a culture that rewards men displaying stoicism and mental fortitude, we are glad they have become part of mainstream culture, normalizing discomfort and mental health. They can be positive tools for personal growth; however, they can also be forms of escapism.
Too often, this is where the healing journey stops, keeping men trapped in a cycle of constantly trying to outrun their feelings.
Consider this an invitation to the greatest, toughest, and most rewarding adventure of a lifetime: going on an inner expedition to awaken and integrate the mind, body, and spirit.
Can you imagine breaking free of relationship patterns or self-sabotaging loops that bind you and suppress your potential? What life could be like without being hostage to toxic shame and fear of vulnerability? Deeper psychological healing and sustainable change require more than momentary quick fixes.1 Instead, you may want to consider plunging more intentionally into your psychological, emotional, embodied, and relational life.
Men’s Mental Health Crisis
We are directly speaking to men in the midst of a mental health crisis because there are stigmatizing cultural messages that prevent them from opening up and seeking help. We commonly hear how they have no one they can be fully authentic or open with in their lives. Around the world, one man dies by suicide approximately each minute of the day.2 Add in a global pandemic, wars, political grief, an environmental crisis, the stigmatization of emotions, and an unstable economy. Some men additionally deal with systemic oppression, racism, and other devastating challenges. The stakes are high.
A common collective fear is that if you look at pain, it becomes real, and then you will be swallowed up by it permanently, never to see the light of day again. The pain is already alive in you and negatively affecting your life, work, relationships, and health, consciously or unconsciously.3 No amount of stuffing it down, outrunning, or compartmentalizing will suffice. We are not suggesting men need to constantly feel every little thing and ruminate on negativity or past trauma. Just as someone needs to get out of the ice bath after a few minutes, one can ebb and flow with hard feelings.
Learning to integrate or metabolize experiences requires a skillset where we can turn towards and expand our tolerance for whatever arises in us. It requires building inner psychological muscles, skills, and tools, so that things that used to feel terrifying no longer hold power over us or drive our behaviour. Substantial healing begins when we consciously and bravely re-open the wounded heart, and choose an alternative path from the dissociative responses that seek to destroy our relationship to ourselves, others, and the planet.4 On the other side of metabolizing pain, we create inner space and presence to awaken to life and love and re-imagine the future.
Instead of constantly bailing water from your sinking boat, it is possible to locate the holes and tend to them. A boat that is not leaking sails faster and more smoothly. Think of all the extra time and energy you could reclaim and reinvest, which makes for a way more enjoyable ride.
For example, in therapy, we have both supported men as they have begun the inward adventure. Some men questioned how “talking” could help. Several men had never stopped to grieve previous losses. They initially struggled to cry or feel self-compassion, with barriers like social stigma, shame, self-judgement, or fear of drowning in grief.
However, they made a conscious choice to trust us and allow us to journey with them. We taught them tools and what to anticipate, including that grief would hit them in waves and that each wave would eventually pass. Some waves crash into us head-on, while others are easier. Commonly, they report back how painful it was to first feel the grief, but that the waves did pass, to their surprise and relief. With support and practice, they learned to navigate their inner storms, reclaim the inner landscape, and *enjoy* the adventure. Later in the therapeutic process, they consistently experienced greater confidence and strength, no longer afraid of what was inside of them. When you aren’t afraid of your inner world, that is true power.
Follow the Serpentine Path of Your Life
There is a long way to go in improving men’s mental health. The pathway of developing greater openness to all experiences is not an easy one, as our society perpetuates stigmatizing messages and norms to hide emotions and does not teach or encourage us to deeply listen to the body and all that dwells within. Implicit felt sense experiences, emotional insights, dreams or fantasies, and other embodied forms of self-expression are generally viewed as ‘senseless,’ ironically. Though the minimization and rejection of emotions reflect a deeper societal wounding that injures the capacity to feel, the conventional wisdom in the field is “feel it to heal it.”
The good news is that if you can sit in an ice bath for over a minute, you have already begun practicing tolerating the discomfort of hard feelings.
Are you willing to stop trying to outrun your feelings? Want to learn how to tolerate, reclaim, and transform your inner psychological landscape?
Answering the call from within is the most heroic and courageous journey any man can step into. Transforming our inner world directly benefits and translates to our external world, rippling in all directions, an invaluable gift for past, present, and future generations. No one is meant to do this alone: find supportive, safe people and/or trusted practitioners for your journey. We invite you to take the plunge.
To find a therapist near you, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
This article was co-authored by Dr. Karima Joy, MSW, RSW, Ph.D. Dr. Joy is a social scientist, therapist, and free spirit. She is deeply committed to a person’s inner freedom and empowerment, the wild alchemy of grief, and reclaiming joy, pleasure, and creativity.
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References
1. Shedler, J. (2010). The efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy. The American Psychologist, 65(2), 98-109.
2. Movember. (2024).
3. Van Der Kolk, B. (2015). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Penguin Books.
4. Kalsched, D. (2020). Opening the closed heart: Affect-focused clinical work with the victims of early trauma. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 65(1), 136–152.
