What does it mean to be a man?

How do our perceptions and ideas about masculinity hinder men from living full and happy lives?

Today we're gonna dive into how Stoicism can help us develop a more healthy definition of masculinity.

Hello, friends.

My name is Erick Cloward and welcome to the Stoic Coffee Break.

Stoic Coffee Breaks is a weekly podcast where I take aspects of stoicism and do my best to break them down to their most important points.

I share my thoughts on ancient philosophy as well as modern wisdom.

I pull from psychology, neuroscience, anything I can get my hands on that can help you to think better because I believe if you think better, you can live better.

This week's episode is called Emotional courage, masculinity and stoicism.

We teach boys that being vulnerable is being weak, and then we wonder why men die of loneliness surrounded by people.

Terry Real.

In our culture, there has been an idea of masculinity, that to be a real man is to be tough and strong.

A real man always puts up a good front.

He will never admit when he's scared or sad.

He won't cry at a friend's funeral because he doesn't want to look weak.

Any discussion about how he feels, any discussion about how he feels in the moment are shut down with I'm fine.

I mean, we see this in our movies and our stories.

We see it online with influence dis.

We see this in our movies and in our stories.

We see it online with influencers displaying a kind of hyper-masculinity that is all about domination and the trappings of success.

But this kind of man who white knuckles his way through life as actually being controlled by his emotions, not mastering them, but let's look at the numbers.

Men make up 80% of suicide deaths.

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death for men under 50.

Men make up 96% of inmates in prison and commit 80% of the violent crimes.

Men are not doing fine.

So let's talk about some of the ideas about masculinity in our culture and why so many men and those around them are suffering because of it.

The truth will set you free, but not until it's finished with you.

David Foster Wallace.

So about 20 years ago, I was going through my divorce and while it was amicable, I still felt like a failure.

I tried to be a good husband, but when I look back on my marriage, I see that I didn't share a lot of my real self with my ex-wife.

I felt like I was not a good person and therefore not worthy of love.

No matter how hard she tried to convince me that I was, I was scared that if she knew who I really was or if I shared the dark emotions, that I felt that she'd hate me.

So I kept a lot of how I felt to myself.

Now, after my divorce, I decided that I really needed to do some soul searching and figure out what kind of man I wanted to be.

I realized that if I continued the way that I was going, I'd end up repeating the same mistakes in future relationships.

And while I made some progress, I did end up repeating some of those same mistakes.

So one of the things that I noticed as I began to look at the men around me was that most men tended to have three states happy, okay?

And angry.

I noticed that this was often how I was.

So in private, I would feel this crushing sadness when I missed being around my kids.

But in public or even around friends, I was fine.

Now, over time, as I began to meet other men who would actually talk about their feelings, I mentioned my observations about men and the three states that I noticed, and many of 'em said they had noticed the same thing.

The fear of being seen weak in society has a powerful influence on the emotions that men are allowed to express.

The worst thing for many men is to be seen as weak or vulnerable.

The other realization that we came to was that negative emotions tended to get funneled into anger because it is the only acceptable negative emotion for men to express, whether it's fear, sadness, or loneliness.

It gets expressed as anger.

Part of this is because anger feels like power.

It feels like a protective shield.

When you feel vulnerable, it feels like action against the fear.

Now, Jackson Katz, the author of the Macho Paradox, expresses it well, countless men deal with their vulnerability by transferring vulnerable feelings to feelings of anger.

The anger then serves to prove that they are not in fact vulnerable, which would imply that they're not man enough to take the pressure.

I mean, how many times when men show vulnerability are they told to man up when they're young and they're upset about something, they're they heard?

I'll give you something to cry about.

Admit that you're lonely, then you're a loser, afraid, then you're a coward.

Every weak emotion they show is driven instead towards expressing anger.

We were taught that anger was the only correct dark emotion to feel.

Another realization that I had over this time was that men have a hard time feeling joy.

I remember times that when I actually did feel something joyful, then I would start to second guess how I was feeling.

There were so many times that I would ruin my own mood because I felt like I was not allowed to feel that emotion.

But Brene Brown says we cannot selectively numb emotions.

When we numb the painful emotions.

We also numb the positive emotions.

When you turn off your other emotions, it's hard to feel the full spectrum of emotions.

It's like you shut down the whole system when you shut down.

Part of it.

You need sadness to feel joy.

You need to feel loss in order to appreciate what you have.

The biggest problem with men not being allowed to have other emotions is that it creates a shame spiral.

You feel things that you're not supposed to feel.

Then you have shame about feeling those things, which then leads to more suppression, and this creates a vicious cycle that many men don't even realize they're in Now.

A lot of men cope with these feelings of inadequacy by becoming very successful.

For them, external achievements mask their internal emptiness.

They chase.

Women buy expensive houses and cars.

They use accomplishments, status, physical prowess as compensation to show to the outside world that they are okay.

But the thing is, it's never enough.

Every accomplishment that they achieve doesn't matter.

They still feel empty.

It's like the gold posts keep moving because external validation can't fix internal wounds.

An example of this is Johnny Cash.

He was one of the most successful musicians ever.

He built an empire.

He had everything he was supposed to want, but he nearly destroyed himself with addiction because he never dealt with the childhood trauma and shame he carried.

It wasn't until he got sober and started actually processing his pain and not just white knuckling his way through it, that it created some of the most powerful recordings of his whole career.

The American recordings, the vulnerable cash was far stronger than the invincible cash.

Now one of the most misunderstood aspects of stoicism is that being stoic means that you suppress your emotions.

And it is crucial to clear up this misunderstanding because so many people get it wrong.

The stoics advocated for understanding emotions not eliminating them.

They understood that feeling emotions was natural, that we need to learn how to navigate them rather than suppress them.

I mean, Marcus Aurelius in his meditations wrote about grief and loneliness and frustration.

He felt it all.

He didn't try to suppress how he felt.

He wrote about his emotions so that he could gain insight into how to deal with them better.

I mean, think about that.

Meditations was not about his victories or his triumphs.

It was all about dealing with the things he struggled with, including his emotions.

Epictetus distinguished between what we control, our responses and what we don't.

Our initial feelings.

He says, don't let the force of the impression when it first hits you, knock you off your feet.

Just say to it, hold on a moment.

Let me see what you are and what you represent.

Let me put you to the test.

It's been said that what you resist persists, unprocessed emotions don't disappear.

They go underground.

The more you push them down, the more powerful they get.

It's kind of like a volcano.

On the surface, everything seems fine, but underneath the surface pressure is building up, and unless that pressure is released in smaller doses, it reaches a point where it explodes and causes serious damage.

When emotions are suppressed, they also show up in other areas of your life and you are controlled by them.

This is what Carl Jung meant when he said, until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

Those suppressed emotions emerge as chronic anger, anxiety, depression, physical symptoms, self-destructive behavior, and even relationship problems.

Those emotions don't go away just because you ignore them.

And I can speak from personal experience.

I had a lot of painful stuff that I hadn't dealt with in my past.

I didn't know how to talk about all the fear, the sadness, and the loneliness that I had felt.

I had a hard time trusting that I could show any vulnerability to anyone.

It was like I had this open wound, and anytime there was pressure on that wound, I would react with anger to protect myself.

So let's talk about a new definition of masculinity.

So James Baldwin says, not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

Real strength means facing what's uncomfortable, rather than running away from or suppressing how you feel.

Just sitting down and naming your emotions specifically as not just fine or angry, takes courage.

Sitting with grief, disappointment, sadness, and fear without needing to fix it immediately and without funneling it into anger.

It means being vulnerable is not a weakness.

Pushing away your emotions is, and vulnerability as an act of choice takes real strength.

So Maxime Lege says, A warrior is not about perfection or victory or invulnerability.

He's about absolute vulnerability.

So let's look at masculinity through the stoic virtues.

First off, we need wisdom.

You need to understand your emotional landscape.

Until you understand your emotions and you can give voice to them, it's gonna be very challenging to actually deal with them.

Next.

We need courage, facing difficult feelings rather than running away from them.

Facing your feelings, I think is one of the most courageous acts that you can actually do as a man.

Next is justice, which means being present and honest in relationships, which you can't be if you're emotionally absent.

Last temperance.

Responding rather than reacting.

It means choosing your path rather than being swept away by your emotions.

So what does this look like in practice?

It means processing your emotions rather than being controlled by them.

It means that you can feel deep sadness and take effective action.

It means that you can acknowledge fear and still move forward.

It means that you can express love and still maintain boundaries.

The wound is the place where the light enters you, Rumi.

So here's some practical steps that you can take to move forward with a healthier.

Definition of masculinity First, you build your emotional VI vocabulary by expanding beyond just those three emotions of happy, okay, and angry.

Start by naming your emotions.

There are so many and some are very nuanced, and understanding what you're feeling is vital to processing them, rather than just saying you're angry, maybe see if you're feeling humiliated, bitter, or frustrated.

A great way to increase your emotional VO vocabulary is to use an emotion wheel, and I'll post a link to one in the show notes, or you can just search for one online.

Next, make it a practice to check in with yourself, see how you feel at various times throughout the day, and explore those emotions.

You can get to know what it's like to feel grief, sadness, disappointment, boredom, contentment, and optimism.

If you're not sure about what you're feeling, try to describe it to somebody that you trust.

This process of just explaining it is a great way to explore what's going on inside and get to know yourself better.

Next, journaling.

Now, this is one of the most important stoic practices, and it's what Marcus Aurelius did.

Don't just write about the events of the day, but rather try to explain all the things that you are feeling, including physical sensations.

Try to use some of the more nuanced emotional descriptions rather than just broad categories of good or bad, or sad.

Next, remember that seeking help is not an act of weakness, but one of strength.

There's nothing wrong with seeking out professional help.

I went to therapy for many years to work on getting my anger under control and exploring why I felt like I couldn't manage my own emotions.

And last, surround yourself with those who are supportive and nonjudgmental about how you feel.

The irony is that we all want to be loved for who we are, but if you don't share who you are with others, they never get to know the real you.

In fact, sharing is often how we get to know ourselves better.

So here's the invitation when you're feeling a strong emotion.

You can reframe it and say, what if The strongest thing that I could do right now is just to feel this?

Because the man who hides from his emotions is actually afraid of them.

He's afraid of facing the hurt that he's feeling.

The man with strength steps up and actually faces them.

He's not afraid to feel what he's feeling.

He recognized that what he's feeling won't hurt and it won't kill him.

This work doesn't make you less masculine, it makes you more whole.

So 20 years ago when I was going through my divorce, I realized that my definition of masculinity, which is what I had learned because of the way I had been raised, just wasn't working.

The anger that was a key factor in bringing a close to my marriage was something that I knew I needed to understand and change.

I didn't know how, and it's taken me a long time to get to where I am today.

I've made a lot of mistakes along the way, but I hope that you can learn from them and learn the hard lesson now rather than years down the road.

But even beyond just relationships, not being in touch with your emotions causes so much damage to you as a person.

Repressing your emotions means that you're controlled by everything you feel.

You're at the whim of external circumstances, the slightest bit of criticism can spin you out.

You're emotionally fragile and you try to protect yourself with anger.

Now, a person who is in touch with their emotions knows who they are.

They can take the hard times that life dishes out.

They can take the meanest comments without reacting with anger, rather than feeling the need to defend against criticism.

They can get curious about it and see if there's any truth to it.

The man who can sit with his grief and acknowledge his fears and still choose his response.

That's strength and that's what the stoics were actually teaching.

That's the masculinity that we need, and that's the end of this week's stoic coffee break.

As always, be kind to yourself, be kind to others, and thanks for listening.

Also, if you haven't picked up my book, stoicism 1 0 1.

I would appreciate if you would.

You can find out more information about it on my website at Stoic Coffee.

Also, if you aren't following me on social media, I would love it if you would gimme a follow.

You can find me on Instagram and threads at Stoic Coffee.

You can find me on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube at Stoic Coffee, all one word.

Thanks again for listening.