Oh my god. Thanks.for touching parts of myself long forgotten. I'm crying like a baby after reading through every punch in my gut. Sorry you know it all. Knowing you know it tells me so much. Thanks for being brave enough to go there and also for coming back to share. I love your work. Please. Please, keep it up.
Men everywhere will feel so seen, moved, and touched by your words. From a woman, thank you for inspiring our men. It inspires us to trust in the masculine and also raise a healthy male generation.
omg you nailed it again - 60 year old male-formed being here wishing your words were the gospel in all the young boys ears (or on their screens 🤪). Thank you 🙏💜
Oh man. I have cried so much reading this. Thank you. I am the boy who never cried for his mom who was ripped away from his life and was never given the chance to grieve.
The path from my mind to my heart has been fucking hard, as it should be, the battles I have won or lost along the way shape me, for that war I know its coming, but is a silent war, because there is nothing to kill or destroy, its allowing the quiet rebellion within me to finally rise. Thank you for such a beautiful poem.
Beautiful. Hard to come to terms with though. We have to make a living and survive in this world that tells us to be this way. To not be this way is to be an outsider, which makes life doubly difficult.
To take your counsel on getting in touch with my feels and be a whole man, I’d first need to buy into your common stereotype of men as pathologically stoic and emotionally crippled. In short, you’re selling the slanderous “toxic masculinity” myth. The male role of provider and protector is real. It’s built into Natural Law. And it’s incompatible with the soggy, emotionally expressive male you seem to recommend. Men cry. Men tell their brothers they love them. Men feel their own pain. But men avoid openly and publicly expressing their pain and fears not because they are emotionally dysfunctional, but because such behavior is incompatible with the role of protector and provider. Your media driven misconception of the typical male emotional life, TBH, reads like it was written by a feminist pop psychologist. It’s as hackneyed and biased as the media driven portrayal of all combat veterans as PTSD basket cases. To sum it up simply, men are better, stronger, and more emotionally stable than your unsolicited psychological counseling assumes.
this topic was big for me a decade ago. in my mid-20s i remember having quite a bit of recognition of this. I felt fortunate to be able to open up my emotions and behave in a more "feminine" / "less masculine" way. When I say i felt fortunate it's because I felt that I had much of what men want: athleticism, high-earning, social respect, diverse skills, and energy --- so i really could care less if someone though I was being feminine or unmanly by expressing my emotions and myself however felt good to me because I felt my definition of being masculine was so strongly cemented by social standards.
...as helpful as that was, it still meant that I was leaning on lots of constructed symbols for my sense of comfort. also, i would look down on men who did not openly express themselves instead of perceive them compassionately.
I still see this gap, just talking to my (male) friend this morning, he is single in his mid 30s and is terrified of a female partner overvaluing him for his money-earning ability and he talked about how he'd rather be valued for his morals and ethics more than anything else and have the freedom to choose his life and career based from being a moral person. He wants to be a leader and provider who leads moral behavior.
The capacity for men to override their emotions, which seems easier to do for this sex, is powerful and useful but, in my opinion, it's exercised to frequently and there's not enough counterbalance to it.
I teach a method of somatic movement that emphasizes compassionate self-sensing through practice and theory. I use it mostly for people looking for a new angle to interact with chronic pain and also, now more recently, with people who are grieving
... and this is where i actually see big opportunity in using compassionate self-sensing for athletic skill building or some sort of aim that still can come across as "ACTIVE" and 'masculine-oriented' <--- but guess what? you're actually practicing self-compassion and self-acceptance to enable self-development.
Oh my god. Thanks.for touching parts of myself long forgotten. I'm crying like a baby after reading through every punch in my gut. Sorry you know it all. Knowing you know it tells me so much. Thanks for being brave enough to go there and also for coming back to share. I love your work. Please. Please, keep it up.
I love this. I love this. I love this. I love this. We see you and we ache with you. 💜🙏🏼
Men everywhere will feel so seen, moved, and touched by your words. From a woman, thank you for inspiring our men. It inspires us to trust in the masculine and also raise a healthy male generation.
I felt so many things with this poem. So powerful!!
Speechless 🫂
omg you nailed it again - 60 year old male-formed being here wishing your words were the gospel in all the young boys ears (or on their screens 🤪). Thank you 🙏💜
Stunning ✨
Wow. Heartbroken and inspired at the same time. Sharing with the men I love including the two I birthed now in their 20s. Thank you.
Oh man. I have cried so much reading this. Thank you. I am the boy who never cried for his mom who was ripped away from his life and was never given the chance to grieve.
The path from my mind to my heart has been fucking hard, as it should be, the battles I have won or lost along the way shape me, for that war I know its coming, but is a silent war, because there is nothing to kill or destroy, its allowing the quiet rebellion within me to finally rise. Thank you for such a beautiful poem.
this is the first time I cried reading poetry on substack. this needs to be plastered on every military base.
Christopher this is so powerful I want to share it with my son, daughter and 1950’s second spouse.
How can I best do this?
Beautiful. Hard to come to terms with though. We have to make a living and survive in this world that tells us to be this way. To not be this way is to be an outsider, which makes life doubly difficult.
Oof. So powerful. Thank you for speaking about this, and giving a voice to so many men.
I forwarded to all the men I love. ;-)
And posted on socials for the many I don't even know who also need to hear this.
To take your counsel on getting in touch with my feels and be a whole man, I’d first need to buy into your common stereotype of men as pathologically stoic and emotionally crippled. In short, you’re selling the slanderous “toxic masculinity” myth. The male role of provider and protector is real. It’s built into Natural Law. And it’s incompatible with the soggy, emotionally expressive male you seem to recommend. Men cry. Men tell their brothers they love them. Men feel their own pain. But men avoid openly and publicly expressing their pain and fears not because they are emotionally dysfunctional, but because such behavior is incompatible with the role of protector and provider. Your media driven misconception of the typical male emotional life, TBH, reads like it was written by a feminist pop psychologist. It’s as hackneyed and biased as the media driven portrayal of all combat veterans as PTSD basket cases. To sum it up simply, men are better, stronger, and more emotionally stable than your unsolicited psychological counseling assumes.
Thank you, Christopher!!
this topic was big for me a decade ago. in my mid-20s i remember having quite a bit of recognition of this. I felt fortunate to be able to open up my emotions and behave in a more "feminine" / "less masculine" way. When I say i felt fortunate it's because I felt that I had much of what men want: athleticism, high-earning, social respect, diverse skills, and energy --- so i really could care less if someone though I was being feminine or unmanly by expressing my emotions and myself however felt good to me because I felt my definition of being masculine was so strongly cemented by social standards.
...as helpful as that was, it still meant that I was leaning on lots of constructed symbols for my sense of comfort. also, i would look down on men who did not openly express themselves instead of perceive them compassionately.
I still see this gap, just talking to my (male) friend this morning, he is single in his mid 30s and is terrified of a female partner overvaluing him for his money-earning ability and he talked about how he'd rather be valued for his morals and ethics more than anything else and have the freedom to choose his life and career based from being a moral person. He wants to be a leader and provider who leads moral behavior.
The capacity for men to override their emotions, which seems easier to do for this sex, is powerful and useful but, in my opinion, it's exercised to frequently and there's not enough counterbalance to it.
I teach a method of somatic movement that emphasizes compassionate self-sensing through practice and theory. I use it mostly for people looking for a new angle to interact with chronic pain and also, now more recently, with people who are grieving
... and this is where i actually see big opportunity in using compassionate self-sensing for athletic skill building or some sort of aim that still can come across as "ACTIVE" and 'masculine-oriented' <--- but guess what? you're actually practicing self-compassion and self-acceptance to enable self-development.