amaturingman

Tag: Personal Growth

  • How Negativity Poisons Relationships – Toxic Patterns

    How Negativity Poisons Relationships – Toxic Patterns

    I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that you would rather be happy than sad.  As part of this, you would probably prefer to surround yourself with positive people versus individuals who are negative and possibly even a bit toxic to be around.

    We all have the power to control what kind of energy we give off around our loved ones or what we bring home to them.  Too many of us were exposed to poor habits and behavior growing up that we have brought into our adult lives and relationships.  As real as that is, we have an obligation to learn better ways to deal with negativity, so our families don’t become our emotional punching bags.

    It can be a bit tricky for men to understand as it can feel so good to get what is bothering us off our chests.  We could have just had to endure a rougher than usual commute.  That one co-worker might have annoyed us more than usual.  Whatever it might be, we have an obligation to learn how to process these life frustrations before we puke them all over our wives, girlfriends, kids, etc.

    I get it, it is tough to learn healthy ways to deal with frustrations.  It is much easier to just complain and move on.  The damage is how that negativity weighs down our loved ones when we take this easy way out.

    Personally, I was terrible at this.  I bet that most of the time that I came home, one of the first things that I did to my wife was unload my issues onto her.  I only thought of myself and how I would feel afterwards.  I didn’t understand how to handle these issues appropriately and I certainly didn’t consider the stress that I was adding to her.

    I can reflect on these mistakes now, but it took some growth on my end to be able to do so.

    What can you do to help buffer your family from negativity?  That is the question that a man should be asking when he is trying to improve in this space.

    Some believe that talking to other men about your day is a great outlet as guys can just be there for each other in this way.  We’ve all heard about guys going to their local watering hole to do this however I’m not advocating drowning your troubles in alcohol.

    Journaling is a popular outlet as well.  When I first started hearing about journalling, I was very skeptical.  Truth is that I still am a little bit, which is why I decided to start this blog.  A great way to grow is to face a fear or challenge and hit it head on.

    I’ve seen plenty of people encourage breathwork.  Taking a deep breath or inhaling/exhaling in a certain pattern to help the negative energy pass through your body can help release the negativity that you might be feeling.

    For me, altering my mindset about my day has been a huge help.  I have found that recognizing a negative and not allowing it to stay with me has been my go-to method.  I still acknowledge what I’m experiencing and that feeling but I don’t let it overtake me either.

    I’ll be honest, this was not an easy thing for me to get.  I was bad at absorbing energy from people around me, especially negative energy.  I had to do a ton of work to get to a point where I handled these moments better.  I’ll probably always have to be aware of this in myself but now that I have a better understanding, I feel that I can be a better man because of it.

    Do you have a method of processing and handling negative energy?  Was it something that I mentioned above or do you have another suggestion?

  • Men, Just Listen to Her – Communication Tips for Stronger Relationships

    Men, Just Listen to Her – Communication Tips for Stronger Relationships

    This might sound odd to most men, especially if they haven’t begun to improve themselves.  Of course you listen to her right?  Sometimes you are half listening while on your phone or watching TV, but you are still listening. 

    Here is what really got me to see this listening dynamic differently, while you believe that you are listening to her, what is her experience like?  If she was presented with the question, what would she say?  Would her answer align with what you believe?  Those are the kinds of questions that allow for a man to begin to see these interactions in a new light.

    So often, conflict in our lives can be explained by two different people having different experiences.  For example, she says that you aren’t listening and your reaction is to say that you are.  She then gets frustrated because it doesn’t feel like you are understanding her while you get annoyed by her not feeling that you are listening.  It is a merry-go-round of dysfunction that doesn’t benefit the health of a marriage or any relationship.

    As you probably have, I’ve listened to plenty of podcasts and videos about how to improve my relationship.  One common theme that I’ve seen is regarding curiosity.  If you approach conversations, disagreements, conflict, etc. with curiosity then there is an opportunity for a positive outcome.  Some experts believe that conflict can bring a couple closer which blew my mind when I first came across that possibility.

    The basics of being closer during/after conflict is simple; two people are working together and not against each other.  The problem for many men is that their ego gets in the way and spoils the possibility for connection to grow when conflict and emotions are high.  We can also get defensive when our ego gets in the way.  Being defensive blocks our ability to listen appropriately and she can 100% feel that barrier.  Our defensiveness is too busy creating a response to defund us versus allowing for us to hear what she is saying.

    Curiosity is a great remedy for defensiveness.  Instead of defending ourselves, try to understand what she is saying and what she isn’t saying.  It is tough to start doing but with practice, you can get better.

    It is OK to ask her to clarify what she is saying.  Tell her that you are trying to understand but need some additional information from her.  Don’t assume that you understand if you are still unclear.  Ask those curious questions.  Show her that you are listening to what she is saying and how her body language is during the conversation.  Being present with her in those moments is part of listening.

    Being with her is a huge part of what she is looking for in these conversations.  She needs to know that you are there and engaged.  Don’t touch your phone, turn the TV off or remove other potential distractions.

    This is a tough adjustment for some men as we are result driven and want to go A to B.  Loitering around talking about stuff can feel very unnecessary to us but talking about things is so important to the women in our lives.  If you can understand that talking is very important to her, wouldn’t you want to take part in giving that to her?  If conversation brings her joy, you’d want to have a role in it right?

    Listening to and providing someone with your undivided attention doesn’t take much effort and it should be especially easy when loved ones are involved.

    Give it a try, you might surprise yourself with how easily it can come to you.  I found that changing my mindset and wanting to be curious has unlocked parts of my life that I didn’t even know was hiding.  Being a better listener has increased my happiness in so many ways, and I can certainly appreciate why women value it the way that they do.

  • Navigating Shame and Guilt on Your Journey to Manhood

    Navigating Shame and Guilt on Your Journey to Manhood

    As you begin your journey to becoming a more complete man, be prepared to feel shame and guilt as you discover deficiencies in your life.  When I started to see the areas where I should have shown up better, I felt awful.  I simply couldn’t believe that I had made those mistakes or acted the way that I did.  Of course, I couldn’t see the errors at the time, or I wouldn’t have made them.  Sometimes we must take a higher viewpoint to see what is going on.  It can be too difficult, or even impossible, to see something when we are deep in it.  There is a reason why even professional athletes have coaches to help.

    Going back to shame and guilt, be prepared for these emotions to bring up feelings that you haven’t been taught how to acknowledge, yet alone process appropriately.  You might feel like you cannot escape what you are experiencing and that is OK.  When our son was sick, I was completely overwhelmed with what I was feeling.  I later learned about the term emotional overload and I believe that is what I was dealing with.  In a nutshell, emotional overload is when so many things are going on at once for someone and you cannot process what is taking place.  A deeper dive into that someday might be worth the time.

    I’ve come to understand that when I make a connection between a situation and how I was feeling, a realization if you will, that shame and guilt were one of the first things that I felt.  I was so embarrassed about how I handled something or how I did not handle it.  It was very easy for me to get emotional because I felt so bad about myself that it would derail me from being able to see the entire picture and to process and learn from it.  I’ve had to work and practice with real-life examples to get better with my processing.  It isn’t easy, especially at first but it does get better with practice.

    The challenge is to give yourself a bit of grace as you are working on developing a new skill.  It’s like learning to read and write or to ride a bike.  It is uncomfortable at first, and you could hurt yourself in the beginning but, eventually, you start to get the hang of things, and you build confidence in your abilities.

    We can be our own worst enemies; I know that I was very hard on myself when my journey first began.  Falling into a negative trap is so convenient as it is a simple escape.  The real work is being able to feel the shame and guilt without it preventing you from learning and growing from the experience and those feelings.  It is OK to acknowledge what you are feeling but then ask yourself why you are feeling them.  Spend whatever time that you need to answer that question.  Once you start to see what is going on inside of your body in those moments, true growth can begin to be unlocked and that is where the real magic begins.

  • Where it all Began

    Where it all Began

    By all accounts, I’m a normal guy. Grew up middle class, graduated school and got a job to begin a working career. Met an amazing woman, got married and had kids. Bought houses, moved a few times, added pets and lost them as the years ticked by. Missing in all of that “normal” stuff that so many men can relate and aspire to be a part of was a world that we were told from an early age to ignore.

    We’ve all heard it as boys, anything emotional is bad. Don’t cry. Don’t act like a girl, whatever that is even supposed to mean. Don’t show emotions, ever. This advice made it easy for us growing up to not challenge ourselves to learn how to engage with emotions from anyone else, even our own.

    For far too long, I did not hear what my wife was trying so hard for me to get about emotions. I fell back on my early training as a boy to not interact with her words as emotions were tied to it. This disengagement created hurt in her that I did not fully understand until recently. There will be time to chat about the layers of that later.

    So, what started the growth journey for me personally? Life has a funny way of picking at the things that might be the hardest for us to address and process. It knows where we are strong and where we might be a bit weaker. For me, I was very weak in emotional maturity. I did not have confidence in that part of life and it was a missing skill for much of my time on this planet. As I was not proficient in this skill, I could not be there for my family in that capacity.

    Back in 2022, our oldest child felt discomfort in a way that led him to seek medical attention. Long story short, we went from thinking he strained his oblique, to a possible hernia to concerns about testicular cancer. A few tests and a biopsy confirmed our fears, cancer. There is something about hearing that your child has cancer that will change a person in ways that words cannot describe.

    This was a shock to all of us in a multitude of ways but it exposed a massive hole in my life and the most important relationship a man can have, his marriage. I had not created an environment where my wife felt emotionally safe with me so she could not come to me with her feelings about our son’s diagnosis. To make matters worse, I was almost completely unavailable to her as I was struggling with my own feelings about his situation. It took quite a while for me to even understand what was going on for me at that time.

    His cancer diagnosis forced me to finally open my eyes to parts of my life that I had pushed away for far too long. I’m still learning, and I hope that I never stop, but I feel that I’m at a point to open up a little bit and hopefully help other men who are just starting on their own journey of growth, regardless of what triggered them to start.

    Even to this day, our society has a stigma attached to men who are emotionally mature. We see it on social media, hear it on podcasts, etc. If a man sheds a tear, we hear what that could mean. If he doesn’t ‘look” like a man should look, it could mean something else.

    There is nothing wrong with a man who understands emotions, period. The women in our lives desperately want men to understand emotions. They live their lives in an emotional world so having a seat at their emotional table would be appreciated.

    As men, it is our responsibility to put in the work and to learn what we were never taught about this emotional world. It is not an easy journey, just a warning. As hard and as uncomfortable that it can be to reprogram our training as men, the potential to be a more complete person is such a beautiful possibility.

    I truly hope that sharing some of my story will be a benefit to whoever finds my posts. Most people would label their family as the most important thing to them. If more families are able to stick together and be more fulfilling, how great could our world be?