Mindfulness for Men
I wanted to share some common symptoms and problems that are often (not always of course) present with males who come into my office:
They have problems with anxiety and stress, and they internalize and absorb this stress
They can’t get out of their head / their mind spins in circles
They are more often than not analyzing / thinking / evaluating future tasks or past problems
They have become increasingly more angry and irritable and notice that they snap at small, trivial things more than they used to
While these are the most common, often what follows are another set of problems:
Can’t make decisions / procrastination
Work performance has been weak
Don’t have the motivation they used to
Lost that joy / contentment or purpose they used to have
Have trouble in intimate relationships and / or simply socializing
Body aches / body is not what it used to be / getting sick often
Taking on too much responsibility and being resentful for it
One of the most simple but I think most comprehensive explanation of this is a general lack of being aware and being able to handle their emotions.
And I have seen the use of mindfulness be a powerful tool for these men.
What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is:
Being completely tuned into the moment
Sensing and feeling instead of thinking
Being non-judgmental of whatever is happening, and just noticing / observing
Using your attention vs. checking out / numbing
Embodying your experience – knowing what your feel in the body in the moment
Accepting what one is feeling vs. struggling against it
Some of this is so incredibly foreign to guys. Our conditioning as men has led us to believe that getting in touch with our feelings will make us weak, and to tune and sense into what we are feeling in the moment sounds absurd.
While it may be in left field, I will often ask men how their current way of handling things is working for them.
When emotions light up, so does the whole body. Emotions kick off an entire biological complex that involves neurochemical activity in the brain, physiological action of the nervous system, respiratory and circulatory systems. If we check out from this whole process, we have disregarded a multitude of invaluable inner resources to help us with our current problem.
Below, I share several ways mindfulness actually makes us stronger, more effective, and more productive.
Mindfulness helps us make better decisions.
If we are always in our heads we actually make worse decisions. Thinking about problems only goes so far. We need to compliment our mind with our gut level feelings. Believe it or not wisdom can come from our emotions but we must learn how to tune in and listen to them. If you have ever been working out and suddenly have this insight bubble up in your mind you may get what I’m talking about. You were engaging the body and your mind responded appropriately, in the moment with what you needed to hear. If you’ve ever tried to chase a thought and the more you try to remember it, the farther it is from you, then you also may know what I’m talking about. When we think too much, we end up going around in circles with little progress.
Mindfulness helps us become less easily triggered into anger and irritation.
Things don’t get to us as quickly when we have been practicing mindfulness. If we spend all day fighting / resisting / struggling / avoiding what we are feeling, we have created a bigger problem. We now have a wound that has not been dealt with, and any stressor will act as an immediate irritant, poking at this wound.
We get more energy because we are more connected to our emotions, and this brings more clarity and productivity.
We can’t thrive when we are stressed, anxious, and shut down in fight or flight mode. Fight or flight is a defense and it keeps us from engaging the positive energy that is underneath. When we calm and center, we eventually contact the positive energy that drives motivation.
We become more creative.
Similar to above, when we are stressed, we leave no room to discover new thoughts and possibilities. We become stuck in habituation, unable to step out of our circumstance and create new experiences. When we have calmed the body and tuned into it in the moment, we allow the natural flow of creativity to emerge.
We become more adept socially.
When we don’t know what we are feeling, we become the monotone dude with nothing to say. Why? If you are not connected to yourself – if you don’t know your inner world of feelings – you will have a really hard time relating to anyone else. Empathy comes from our own understanding of emotions, pain, and experience. We “get” others when we have spent some time with ourselves.
Our bodies are more healthy – we have improved memory, improved sleep, and better heart health.
We are more happy – we enjoy life, both the good and bad – because we know how to be present with it in a way that gives us energy and not in ways that drain us.
Because of all of this, we end up getting more of what we want, we just go about it in a very different way than before. Instead of forcing and controlling others and ourselves into what we want, we start to just be with ourselves and actually come to know what we need. And when we do that, we are much better in asking and receiving from others what we need.