It’s hard to be a man

It’s so hard to be a man.

We’re told as men that we need to be hard.  We as men often think the most manly thing to be is hard.  

What I find for myself, my sons, my brothers, and the men I work with is that it’s so hard to be a man. 

Most men I know really want to be a good man, husband, father, brother and friend to others.  So often, the breakdown in these very relationships and the chief complaint from wives, partners, children, friends and family, is that men are emotionally unavailable or emotionally insensitive or emotionally volatile. 

Typically, this is displayed in shutting down (freeze), pulling away (flight) and or blowing up and being aggressive (fight).  

How did we get here? Why are we men this way?

There are so many intricate, layered messages about who we as men are supposed to be and how we’re supposed to feel and behave.  

Be tough.  Don’t cry.  Try harder.  Be harder. Be hard.

In reality, we’re so tender.  It doesn’t take much to hurt us, and it doesn’t take much for our nervous system to overload and shut down. We scare really easily.

The truth is, we’re very sensitive.  It’s evident in our anatomy. A simple knock across our nuts and we drop to the ground.  It’s a plain and simple truth seen in every blooper reel: a little toddler swings a plastic bat into dad’s groin and down the big man goes.  

This physical sensitivity is mirrored in the sensitivity of our self, our psyche and emotional structure.  We’re so sensitive and we know it…and we often don’t know what to do with all that sensitivity!  So we bury it, stuff it, try and be cool and “manly”.   

Our sensitivity is a pivot point for humility or hardening.  The same prompt, our sensitivity, can be the impetus for us to move towards tenderness and truth or towards hardness and hatred…hatred of self for being so sensitive.  So we’re at odds with ourselves, making it hard to be ourselves.

It’s understandable why so many men learn and practice dismissing their own sensations, sensitivity and sensuality.  Sure, it’s cool to be hard, but most of the time we’re soft, flaccid and just dangling out there with the potential of getting wacked.  So much potential!  However, we’ve often been given little to no guidance that helps us be the sensitive men that we be.  

The flip side is, as we dismiss our sensitive selves, we begin to feel less than, we feel unfulfilled, empty, and not enough.  Not big enough and strong enough and not making enough…the list goes on.  

These two things are tied together: our sensitivity and not enough.  Emptiness, a lack of fulfillment, this gnawing feeling of not being enough, and the dismissiveness of sensitivity.  This makes it very very hard to be a man.  

We men are desperate for a change.  So let’s get to work in a way that doesn’t make it any more difficult to be ourselves.  

We need to shift our awareness to understand the belief systems we grew up in that impact, shape and inform what we believe about ourselves as men.    

We need simple practices that shift our awareness to our sensations and emotions - emotions which we experience through our sensations.

We need to do this with others, to normalize our sensitivity, which has been socially and culturally ridiculed.     

All men know they’re sensitive.  Acknowledging our deep sensitivities with kindness will humble us into our integrity and the truth of tender selves.