Men’s well-being for a long time has been measured around success. However, we are fast learning that our main focus on success is costing us in relationships with our partner and family. It is also impacting significantly on our own emotional and mental health. We just have to look at the depression and suicide statistics of men – which isn’t great!!
Faced with increased Stress
We have been conditioned and primed to be driven to get ahead. There is far more pressure on us these days than ever before. I call it – it’s like we are now living in the “Digital Bronx”. The only sanctuary we have in the world is the front door of our homes. With the increased stress, we carry these days, how much of that do you bring home?
What impact is this stress having on your well-being? Are you finding that you cannot switch off from the stress? You sort of park it momentarily in the back of your mind to focus on family life – but are you really ‘present’? You go to sleep at night and you cannot switch the mind off and wake up tired, experiencing sleep deprivation but you know you’ve got to drag yourself out there and do it all again!
Our Physical, Mental, Emotional & Spiritual Well-being
Well-being isn’t just our physical well-being, there are 3 other realms added to it being, mental, emotional & spiritual. All of these realms are interconnected, however, we tend to focus on the mental & physical. We keep seeing the world from our well-trained rational-logical mind. This offers us a safe way of being in the world when we know our world order.
Relationships are complex and these impact significantly on our emotional and mental well-being. How often have I heard, “it’s doing my head in” – which suggests our well-being is out of whack. We can be struggling to add it all together here. We may be finding ourselves not coping, feeling vulnerable and our mind isn’t as switched on in it’s decision making like it use to be.
Evolved Well-being
Learning to connect to our well-being is not always easy for men. The feelings stuff (emotions) is something we did when we were young and then taught it’s not okay to feel and be emotional. Feelings are the early warning within our bodies and ‘being’ letting us know – things aren’t okay. We can experience vulnerability and may not be coping however, just push through even harder – like converting these feelings into more stress.
Acceptance of Well-being
In our work, we meet men who are at crisis point, life is not wonderful and we are not coping. This is a horrible space for men and can be very confronting.
Our role is to guide men into learning to understand themselves – at all realms of our psyche. Deep down we men are connected our deeper wisdom and energy, we just can’t access it as our ‘rational-mind’ overrides it. Our work helps come into an acceptance of all aspects of ourselves. We develop an acceptance that sometimes I am not coping and owning our vulnerability.
Instead of pushing through it – we learn to stop and listen to ourselves and care for our well-being. It can be allowing the simple rewards to be incorporated in our lives ~ taking the time to ‘smell the roses’ so to speak. It may facilitate the authentic expression of, “I’m not coping at the moment” when our partner asks, “what’s wrong?” Instead of the old “nothing” when asked – just adding to more stress which is energetically visible miles off!!
In a safe space we grow to accept these aspects of our well-being. There is nothing wrong with them – they just are. Accepting them rather than fighting them allows us to connect more to ourselves and let them out before they come insurmountable. This is coming into a new relationship with ourselves and acceptance of our well-being.