Male aggression is fear, shame, and disappointment not dealt with.

Three years ago I started a men’s group. I started it because I needed to speak about my own issues with being a man. I have battled with being a man, especially when it comes to being vulnerable about my feelings and my fears. I grew up in a time and place where men were not encouraged to speak about their feelings, and if anything, we were encouraged to deny them, in favor of more powerful attributes like strength, control, and a ‘men don’t cry’ attitude. What I observed while growing up in such a system was that many boys, and men, seemed to obsessively emulate this limiting mindset, whether it was through sport, leadership, our social contracts, or in how we conducted our relationships with each other, and especially with women.

It was only in the last few years that I have started to become aware of the grave costs associated with believing I need to be strong rather than soft, hard vs emotional, and in charge VS willing to follow. It was only when I came to grips with the nature of my addiction that I started to realize that my addiction was very tied to my inner feelings of inadequacy, and to my fear of not being properly understood, by those around me, especially by men. It was only when I began to understand these issues that I also realized that much of my earlier life had been lived through the lens of ‘this is how a man needs to behave’, and if I am not able to ‘be strong and in charge’ then what kind of man am I? It became clear to me that my perceived sense of the identity of ‘maleness’, and the reality of my actual identity, were at odds with each other. This discrepancy led to me feeling isolated from other men, and in constant service to emulating the prevailing idea of ‘being a man’.

I came to realize that for much of my life I have been locked in a stereotype of ‘being a man’ rather than being ‘the man I truly am’. It is identity issues like these that cause all kinds of issues for men; issues of addiction, of domestic violence, and of feeling isolated or different from other men. I didn’t really stop to think that perhaps this is how many men actually feel inside, and that while we are all trying to live up to the stereotypical and stoical version of what we have been told a man is, we are all really feeling a bit lost in the equation. These stereotypes are perpetually reinforced in our social circles and work circles, mainly because these are habitual and inherently part of our historical programming.

Then I started to do some research on the matter. I began to find a whole host of information out there that clearly suggests that men coming from a background schooled in patriarchal systems are experiencing severe dislocation from the idea of ‘maleness’ they are desperately trying to emulate. This means that while we all think we are supposed to be a certain way we are actually more commonly feeling the disconnect from these normative stereotypes.

There is very little support for men in this regard. Our history of prominence and dominance in the world has not sufficiently identified and responded to this major drawback in our historical positioning as men, which means that while many men feel isolated from the typical idea of ‘what a man needs to be’ we do not speak about it, or access freedom from it, because we fear verbalizing our position. If we did so we would most likely find out that we are certainly not alone in our feelings, and that we are many.

It was in this vein of thought that I decided to start a men’s group. I advertised it across my social groups, and via social media, and I noticed a few things immediately:

• I got rebuked by quite a few men who clearly thought I was trying to do something weird and ‘touchy feely’. This was not a surprise as it exhibited exactly the kind of knee jerk fear reaction men have to many intimate subjects that require stepping out of their ‘comfort zone’ and towards themselves.
• I got quite a lot of interest from a range of men. No public acknowledgement but in the form of private messages / emails expressing interest in the idea. Many expressed interest but few followed through with it.
• I was approached by some existing organisations like The Mankind Project, the Good Man Project, and was encouraged to join them on one of their programs. I did do the mankind project weekend and found it very powerful.
• Many women said they believed their husbands, or partners, would benefit, but again, very few of these people ended up coming forward, mostly because the women who suggested their husbands or boyfriends didn’t think they would go for it.

In the end we had a small group of men who attended the weekly sessions. It was an interesting dynamic, and it took bravery and courage to get the sessions moving. We would meet for 2 hours every 2nd week, with the intention of speaking about a range of topics like:

• Sex
• Gender
• Kids
• Relationships
• Love
• Fear
• Anger
• Shame
• Childhood
• Parents & Parenting
• Addiction
• Racism
• Self esteem

This group still continues today. It is a very small and regular group of men who regularly meet to do one simple thing; to be a support system for each other. This group has been a critical support system to all the men that have been part of it and it has served its purpose 150%. All I can think is that such groups would benefit so many more men if they could just find the courage to become members of such groups.

I believe that if more men gathered in such groups, and allowed themselves to become truly vulnerable, and honest, about their feelings, and shared their experiences, there would be a major shift in how men:

• Identify with what being a man is like today
• Find new ways to deal with their inner most feelings constructively
• Deal with their intimate relationships through vulnerability not ‘being strong’
• Break from unhealthy stereotypes of what being a man is all about and work at re-establishing a new identity of maleness.
• Find an outlet that isn’t fuelled by alcohol, chauvinistic behavior, and the persistent denial of their fears.
• Finding out that we all have similar fears and worries, and that we can help each other to find healthy outlets to these pressure points, rather than taking it out on each other, our wives and girlfriends, and our children.
• Get support and care from each other.
• Access genuine connection without fear of judgment or condemnation.

I have spent a long period of my adult life sitting in ‘group dialogues’ designed to help people who suffer from addiction deal with addiction, so that we can learn to live a life of purpose and sobriety, and while they have seriously annoyed me at times, they have proved to work a certain kind of magic that I cannot deny. These groups are essential in enabling addicts to live a better life. Why does the same not apply to helping men to ‘live a better quality of life’? God know we need all the help we can get. We need to find healthy ways to escape the shackles of our conditioning, we need to choose better ways to deal with our fears, our disappointments, and our relationships. We have been badly prepared by our forefathers, and the evidence shows it, that we need to change our conditioning.

I have learnt that by dealing with the small simmering issues that come up in life I avoid dealing with a huge explosion down the line. This is what regular ‘group work’ delivers. I believe that men everywhere can benefit from this work, and I do think that if we want to diminish the destruction that men so often create in the world, we need to start accessing this kind of work and become dedicated to doing it. It needs to become an issue of national importance, an issue of personal savior.

Any man is capable of a terrible crime against other men, or women, it just depends how long they are left to fester alone with their thoughts, their fears, their loneliness, their inadequacy, and the belief that they are not measuring up to what they believe a real man is.

It is not hard to set up a network of such groups. It has been done with NA & AA, and with countless women’s groups, why not for men?