Healthy Masculinity in Community

I have been in the mental health field for over 33 years working with men and leading men’s groups. The focus is to become “Healthy Men.” This includes tending to their emotional health and their physical health. Men need community to prosper.  Unfortunately, we tend to isolate and keep other others at a distance. Nowadays few men can name a best friend. We are suffering from an epidemic of loneliness. Men benefit from being in a group with others on a healing journey where the focus is on growing and becoming the best version of themselves.

A men’s group is a safe place where there is no judgement, discrimination, harassment or fear of emotional or physical harm. The participants get to work on anything they choose including their relationships at home and at work. What emotion comes up in this setting? Grief. There is a well of unexpressed, unnoticed grief that most men carry relating to their father’s absence in their lives and the disconnection they have from themselves.  Or the ways they have been shamed for being vulnerable and expressing tears. And having to bury the affection they have for the important men in their lives. Men’s work can be about filling in the wound of the absent father by being there to support, encourage and be acknowledged when they grow and become better men.

So, in a men’s group the “journey to wellness” is sorting out who you are, what you want and doing the personal work to manifest your best life. That includes being the best husband, partner and parent you can be.

Men work on breaking out of the “emotional straight jacket” they live in. It is a rigid way of acting and thinking that limits our expression and truncates our masculine expression. This policing starts very early in our culture as boys are teased for crying, wanting to play with dolls, etc. It takes many years of this training to become the locked down, seemingly emotionless men you see in the world. A men’s group is a place to break out of that jacket and get to be your authentic self. I remember a member doing a work piece where he embraced his love of Fiesta ware. He had been collecting it for years and enjoyed using it. The message from his family is that it was not “OK” and a sign that he must be gay for enjoying this dinnerware. Value is added when the group is racially diverse and includes men who are gay. In telling our stories we find the commonalities that help us be closer together.

Men need a place with other men to create comradery, understand how they are different and alike and support each other to give healthy expression to their emotions. It is essential for men to work with other men and be in community that supports them being healthy, emotional, physically and spiritually.

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