Being a bloke, being a husband, being a dad its a total rollercoaster ride. There’s the indescribable love you feel for your family. But then there’s the suffocating pressure:
- The crush of providing for the family
- The overwhelming sense of failure of where you are with your finances compared to where you want to be
- The endless frustration of uncertainty of whether you’re doing the right thing with work, money, investments, cheaper electricity
- Then there’s the relentless bombardment of how perfect everyone else’s life looks, what other blokes are doing, and we compare that to our darkest moments – enter the shame and guilt.
It’s something us men, and women, need to own for ourselves. There’s no shame or guilt that’s going to change the way we feel about the ups and downs of life. THERE’S NO SHAME IN NOT FEELING AWESOME ALL THE TIME. But, instead we try to suck up that feeling, we push it down, we try to ignore it, we try to toughen up. We end up replaying all those unwanted emotions and feelings over and over and over… we end up building an over dramatic soap opera IN OUR OWN HEAD. We start to believe in our own drama, thinking it’s true.
What we are all feeling isn’t happening just to us. Remember that other dad, down at the swings, remember the knowing nod that you both exchange. The knowing nod of: ‘Yep, I’m exhausted. Yep, I feel the pressure, too. Yep, I’m struggling to keep my head above water.’ The knowing nod of the grind as you both raise your takeaway cups of coffee to each other…and you both smile as you think you should have saved that 5 bucks and made the coffee at home.
It’s not just you. There’s other blokes going through the same stuff as you, you’re not alone. How do I know? Because that’s what I feel too.
The grind is relentless and all consuming. It never stops. We barely get a chance to scratch ourselves with the never ending list of chores and things to do. No wonder we can easily get lost in the daily grind. No wonder we can feel like we are spiralling down, out of control, lost, numb and feeling hollow.
Is it any wonder than that there’s such a crisis with men, men’s health and men’s mental health?
Some scary stats at a glance:
- The LEADING cause of death for Aussie men between 15-44 is suicide
- 1 in 2 Aussie men have or have a had a mental health condition
- 7 in 10 men are overweight or obese
It’s probably a good idea to re-read those stats and let that sink in. The leading cause of death in Aussie blokes from 15-44 is suicide. Not car accidents, not drug or alcohol abuse, not anything else. Its suicide. Almost 50% have or have had a mental health issue – pretty amazing stat when you consider men generally don’t seek out help or assistance. 70% of blokes are overweight or obese. These stats almost seem un-real, yet they are, actually very real.
Where does that leave the next generation of men?
It’s so easy to get caught up, to get sucked in. It’s so easy to spin out of control. We get so attached to our made up soap opera that it consumes us. Yet, it’s not the full story, it’s not whole truth. Our mind is amazing it can start linking and joining things so fast until all of a sudden you’ve created a habit, a habit you probably didn’t want, a habit that puts you on a downward spiral. That’s what happens when we get so caught up in our own story, our own crap.
It’s a lot like a magic trick by a magician. A mate of mine is a magician and he’s amazing with cards. Absolutely amazing. I just love to sit back and watch him as he performs stuff that would appear out of this world. As I watch, my inner child sits back and goes ‘this is truly amazing, that is totally magic’. Every now and then the cynical, ‘real’ adult mind kicks in and starts to try and analyse and pick apart and think about how he actually did it… this usually doesn’t last too long as my head starts to hurt because, like I said, I don’t want to ruin the magic of it all but I’m sure I could get on the web and find out how he does those tricks. Within a couple of clicks I’m sure I could find the ‘truth’ behind his ‘magic’ trick. Which is a lot like our own soap opera in our heads – the downward spiral that’s going on between our ears. It appears totally real, we can play it over in our mind, but we keep finding what we believe to be true. Until, we get to a point where we talk to someone about it.
We talk to the Mrs, one of our mates, it doesn’t matter we just end up getting it off our chest. Have you done this? I know I have. And, you know what happens next? That crap that was constantly weighing you down, that belief about what was going on in your mind and how true it was and how big a burden it was to carry magically disappears, it was if it was all in our heads.
At other times, we run ourselves in circles wondering whether or not we are doing the right thing. We weigh up every option. We try and think of everything. And, for some reason we start thinking about what everyone else would say if we did it this way or that, if we chose to do something they may seem crazy to our mates, our parents or to pretty much everyone. We get stuck trying to live up to an expectation of how we are meant to live.
It seems crazy but let’s take a look back. We were a ‘good boy’ if we listened to mum and dad and did what we were told. We were a ‘good boy’ if we did what the teacher told us at school. We were a ‘good boy’ when we went off to work, got a trade or go to uni. We were a ‘good boy’ when we bought our first house. We were a ‘good boy’ when we got married and settled down. We were a ‘good boy’ when we decided to start a family. Everyone has told us what was good and bad. Everyone has told us that we were a ‘good boy’ and we followed all those recommendations. Don’t get me wrong it’s not all bad, what I’m trying to get across is that we have been trained to care about what everyone else thinks. Then, all of a sudden we get to a point and it’s like: ‘what next?’ What happens when we suddenly realise that we have just done what everyone expected of us. What happens when we decide to grab life by the balls and take control?
When was the last time you sat down and thought about your strengths, rather than being consumed by your multiple weaknesses? When was the last time you asked yourself what it is you really want to do? When was the last time you thought about what you want from life?
Getting to that ‘what next’ point can really fry your brain… and it kinda does as you’ve interrupted software in your brain that you’ve been working on since before you were born. When your brain fry’s, when it gets too hard to think, all you want to do is switch off.
So, you pick up your phone and start checking out what everyone else is posting. And, just like my mate’s card magic, you see the ‘magical’ lives that all your mates are living, you see all their highlights. Your head drops and your whole body slumps… ‘why is their life so awesome. Why is mine so crap?’ You rarely ever see the tough moments, the crap moments, the I just want to throw a tantrum moments. You don’t see the post of people not wanting to get out of bed, you don’t see the whole story. As a bloke with our instinctive drive to protect and provide for our family checking out everyone else’s magical life is like getting stabbed in the heart over and over again, our soap opera starts playing again. We have been a good boy, we’ve done what everyone expected us to do…so why do I feel this way?
I know how you feel because this is how I feel.
You’re not alone.
Thanks for reading,
Sam
#grablifebytheballs
If you wanna change your soap opera join us as we blow the lid off what’s actually going on for all of us blokes:
