Archives for August 2016

 
As I finished childhood and became an adult, there were people concerned that I would repeat the cycle of Childhood Domestic Violence (CDV) that plagued my youth and become an offender myself. I knew that I never would because I looked at CDV the same way as I did getting bullied throughout school. I hated feeling that way when someone mistreated me, so there was no way I could ever do that to someone else. However all of the information that has been shared in the mainstream media validates the fears those people had for me. Many kids grow up to become offenders themselves and the cycle continues for another generation.
I am blessed because I didn’t repeat the cycle and now as a father myself I can do my best to make sure my son and stepson never have to worry about violence in our home. Since I did overcome that adversity and never repeated the cycle, advocates, professionals, and other survivors ask me how I did it. It wasn’t through therapy, medication, or multiple classes and support groups. Don’t get me wrong. Those ways are fine but for me the answer is through fitness…specifically lifting weights.
Although I didn’t want to repeat the cycle of violence or bullying, I still was affected by the stress that was caused by both. I needed an aggressive way to get that stress out of my system but I didn’t want to do something that would hurt anyone else or myself. Lifting weights requires intensity and aggression, didn’t hurt anyone else or myself as long as I was careful, and can be positive for me because of the health and fitness benefits that lifting provided. It made perfect sense and it eventually opened doors for me to establish a career as a writer in the fitness industry.
My main point here is that instead of doing something that released my stress and aggression in a way that affected others negatively, I found a way that was positive and helped myself as well as others through my work. I could preach why you should commit to a fitness program for those reasons and many others but instead I want to implore you to find your own positive way to overcome any negative issues that are plaguing your mind and emotions because of whatever you faced in your past. Whether it’s violence, bullying, drug abuse, or anything else that has affected your life negatively, you can find a positive way to overcome the effects of them. It could be lifting weights, running, other sports, meditation, speaking, volunteering for a group in need, or anything that can benefit yourself and others without affecting anyone negatively. Whatever way it is for you, find it and commit to it fully because it can help you live a better life and may even help others so they don’t have to face the issues you’ve had to face. There is no more positive way to overcome negatives than that.
__________
Roger Lockridge is an advocate and speaker who has worked for over 15 years on behalf of survivors of childhood domestic violence. His story was featured in the best selling book “Invincible: The Ten Lies You Learn Growing Up with Domestic Violence and the Truths to Set You Free”. He’s also an award-winning fitness writer whose work has been seen around the world. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn by searching for Roger Rock Lockridge.

 
Sign up to the ManTalks newsletter and every week we’ll send you an email with the week’s top articles and interviews.

Pretty Much Everyone Gets It Wrong About Money

Having spent eight years in the private investment business, I’ve been asked the same questions over and over: “How can I raise more money?” and “How can I make more money?”
In response, I would explain how you could improve your e-mail marketing campaign, how many phone calls a week you should be making to cold, warm, and hot prospects, and how my investment products were better than standard investments like mutual funds. I was very good at having an answer to how my clients could make more money and how more money would give them the freedom, security, confidence, or success they had always longed for.
But I began to realize that even though my clients and I were making more money I didn’t feel freer, more secure, more confident, or more successful — nor do I ever remember a client expressing these feelings.
I realized that making more money was not, is not, and will never be the answer to deeper human challenges.

How This Plays Out

A couple weeks ago I was in Edmonton delivering a coaching program to a client, Cody. He reached out because [as always] he wanted to learn how to raise more money.
But something didn’t sit right with me: I didn’t believe the technical knowledge about raising money was what Cody needed, and I didn’t believe his challenge was related to raising more money, or making more money at all.  
How could it be? He already had plenty of money. I knew that more would never bring him the feelings he coveted (freedom, security, confidence, success).
I agreed to meet him to deliver a two-day, one-on-one coaching program on one condition: he must be open to deepening the conversation beyond just the technical aspects of how to raise money. A funny thing happened: almost as soon as I stated my condition, Cody launched into an explanation that what he was really looking for was a way to create more meaning in his life. He wanted to know what it would take to wake up in the morning and be excited about his day.
Cody is a smart guy. On the outside his life looks amazing — he’s a successful business owner in Edmonton. He lives in a beautiful house on a lake, has a gorgeous wife, beautiful children, and works about 40 hours… a month.
Cody’s goal is to work as little as possible for the most amount of money, which is most people’s. The bogus term, “passive income” neatly expresses this desire for many.
Cody has gotten so good at living this philosophy that on a typical day rolls out of bed at 10am, lounges on the couch, and before long sparks up a joint.
He spends the much of the rest of the day smoking more weed, returning a few phone calls, and answering a few text messages. He has mastered his philosophy, earning well over $300,000 a year while living this lifestyle.
The problem is that Cody is terribly unhappy. He gets no meaning from his work. How did this happen? And more importantly, how can he change?

Why We Chase The Wrong Goals

Cody knows he’s unhappy but doesn’t know why, and he’s figured out a novel way to avoid the discomfort. Rather facing his discomfort he fills that space– and soothes his anxiety — with his various avoidance techniques.
Rather than admit the lack of fulfillment he pushes away the feelings temporarily by filling the space with weed and the pursuit of money and plenty of leisure.
The effects of the weed don’t last long, so the underlying discomfort and unhappiness quickly return. His philosophy keeps him needing more and more marijuana.
It may be easy to hear Cody’s story and think, “Well I don’t smoke weed everyday. I’m not Cody. I’m happy in my business.”
But replace marijuana with alcohol, sex, smart-phones, the Internet, Facebook, selfies, shoes, cigarettes, shopping, or anything else and the result is the same.
We’ve constructed a society full of ways to escape ourselves. We’re taught that it’s not okay to feel unhappy or experience pain, and that if we do it just means we need more money, sex, Internet, smart-phones, or selfies.
But feeling pain doesn’t mean we’re broken. Since we’re not broken there’s nothing to fix. In my mind these feelings are who we are. They are the manifestation of our true self. No amount of marijuana, sex, selfies, or cigarettes will make them go away. When we try to “fix” our emotions this way they only grow stronger, because our truth wants to be seen and heard.

Why The Surface Often Doesn’t Represent the Depths

For years I pretended to be someone I was not because I was afraid of sharing my voice and speaking my truth. On the outside my life looked great. I was running a “successful” business and driving a BMW. I had the time and money to travel around the world and do things like yoga and scuba diving.
I had a beautiful girlfriend and a four year old step-daughter. We lived in a beautiful condo in downtown Vancouver and had a boat big enough for us to live on in the summer, have big parties with our friends on and take long trips up the BC coast.
I had done an excellent job of achieving what I thought I needed to be ‘successful’. The only problem was that underneath this projection of happiness and success I was fucking miserable.
I thought that by making a lot of money I’d be happy. So I stayed in a business I hated. I thought I had a responsibility to make my girlfriends happy. So I pretended to be happy in my relationships even when I was feeling upset or anxious. I thought if I achieved everything and continued to live this lie that eventually I would feel happy.
But lying to myself only made the suppressed feelings stronger and I was subconsciously destroying my life while trying to keep the depression at bay. My solutions? I started working longer hours so I could do more deals to make more money.
I looked for having more miscellaneous sex, drinking almost every day, and creating excuses to have parties so I could get drunk. It was all an attempt to numb out the shame, pain, sadness, and despair that screamed louder and louder.
My “solution” did not work — of course.
The pain only grew stronger and more incessant. I woke up every morning to work at a job I hated. I cheated on and pushed away every girlfriend I had because I did not want to take responsibility for and reveal how scared, alone, and unhappy I really felt.
Deep down I felt I didn’t deserve to be loved, yet I continued to hide this emotion and blame my unhappiness on everyone else but myself.  
On the inside I was slowly dying. I had massive feelings of shame, anxiety, sadness, and pain that I was not sharing with anyone, including myself — these weren’t new emotions. I can remember them as far back as kindergarten, when I would sit on the curb dreaming I was a Jedi Knight waiting for Han Solo to come pick me up in his Millenium Falcon.
I remember being curled up in a little ball with my feet tucked up under my jacket and cried because I felt like I didn’t fit in. I felt helpless and alone and I desperately wanted Han Solo to take me to that galaxy far, far away. I wanted to be like Luke Skywalker and thought if Han Solo picked me up I could learn how to become a Jedi Knight and then for sure I’d fit in.
I didn’t realize that it was okay to feel like I didn’t fit in or that I didn’t have to go anywhere or become Luke Skywalker so that my friends would love me for who I was.
Years later I wanted to become some other mythical creature — the rich, successful, carefree entrepreneur — rather than a Jedi. But I still wanted to be anything but myself.
I didn’t realize that the Jedi Knight I thought I wanted to be was really me. I thought I needed to go somewhere else, to change, to escape, to control my emotions and my life. What I missed was that I just had to get out of my own way and let myself feel it.
Eventually with the help of a good friend and mentor I became more aware of the anxiety, pain, shame, and despair gathered up inside me and I began to really feel it. As my awareness grew around these feelings I began to reveal more and more of myself — to those closest to me and the world around me. An incredible thing happened when I allowed myself to really feel the anxiety, really feel the shame, really feel whatever the feeling was.
The intensity of the feelings began to dissipate, sometimes there was a noticeable release of pressure inside me almost right away, and I began to feel a greater sense of peace and calm.

How Our Ability To Feel Opens the Door

For Cody, marijuana consumed the majority of his mental energy. This left no space for what he actually wanted because you can’t create something new when there is no space for it.
Have you ever heard that a lot of successful writers find themselves cleaning their house before they write? This is a technique to create mental space.
If Cody could stop smoking weed — or even just cut back —  his inspiration towards “finding more meaning in his life” would start to show up because there would be space for it. If he would stop focusing so much attention on money he would create more space for his fulfillment to show up, too.
But his real challenge isn’t financial. It’s not about the money at all. It’s about not valuing himself. He already has more money than 99% of the people on the planet — and yet he’s not happy.
If making more money than 99% of the people on the planet hasn’t made him happy, what do you think the odds are that more will be the solution?
We over complicate our lives by placing things, stuff, money, or substances in front of what really inspires us. These things then hold us back from showing up in the world as we truly want to.
They hold us back from feeling. When disconnected from what we feel, we are disconnected from ourselves and others because feeling is how we connect with others.
Our ability to feel connected to ourselves lets us be more present and connected to others. Giving this gift of our connected and feeling self results in purpose and meaning.  
Our ability to feel is what makes us human.
Read More By Chris Biasutti on the ManTalks Blog:
How Giving a Public Talk Forced Me to See My Truth
__________
Chris Biasutti spent years of his life getting very good at pretending to be someone he was not because he was afraid of sharing his voice and speaking his truth. On the outside his life looked great. He was running a “successful” financial services business , driving a BMW, and had a boat big enough to live on. 
But he realized one day that happiness was missing from the equation. So he started investigating and soon realized that the problem was widespread. Nobody was happy, and everyone thought what they needed was more money.
Today, through his coaching and consulting, he helps entrepreneurs build businesses that truly serve them and the world around them.
Chris is in love with the ocean and travelling. He spent 2012 living on a remote island in the Philippines where he was certified as Divemaster. He can frequently be found diving under or sailing on top of the water off the coast of B.C. and in remote destinations around the world.
You can contact Chris as [email protected].

Sign up to the ManTalks newsletter and every week we’ll send you an email with the week’s top articles and interviews.

[fc id=’3′][/fc]

It has taken me roughly twenty years to publicly say this out loud … I am a gay father. Correction, it’s taken me twenty years to say it out loud without fear of losing my children or compromising my job.
I guess you could say I’ve come a long way, although when saying it out loud I still fear retribution.
And I live in Manhattan! Will that fear ever go away, even in our most “accepting” of environments?
I was a divorced, single, gay, active father back at a time when none of that was discussed, accepted, or embraced. I was raising my two children feeling quite alone in the world, with no role models or support groups to help guide me through the landmines of not only just being a parent, but also being gay. A gay parent. There weren’t very many of us back in the day, and certainly very few of us that were “out.” It all remained unspoken.
For the most part, I kept my mouth shut and kept my head down, plowing my way through life as best I could. I balanced work and family, just like everyone else, but I was unlike anyone else. I changed diapers, made school lunches, and ran my kids around to their activities like the best of them. I tried to be the best dad I could be.
Back then most dads weren’t so active in raising their children. In fact I was generally the only father around those parent-teacher conferences, class field trips, lunchroom duties, and fundraising events. I was the only dad around in a sea of moms…yet the school wouldn’t allow the bus to pick my kids up at my home and I couldn’t get report cards sent to my address. The other parents politely acknowledged me with a head nod, only because they couldn’t deny that I was doing my best as a father. Most of the teachers embraced me, but we were in a school system that couldn’t or wouldn’t. Yet, I was the primary caregiver doing it all, including homework and trips to the dentist.
You see moms were the ones back then that took care of the kids. Dads worked and mowed the lawn. I was an anomaly to that all, and perhaps even a threat. And I was gay on top of it all.
I kept a journal at the time to chronicle those daily events. My lawyer advised me to prove that I was the active caregiver, in case I was ever “threatened.” The fact that I had to prove my worth as a dad still irks me today, but I did what I had to do at the time. I’ve since turned that journal into a personal memoir called Out and About Dad: My Journey as a Father with all its Twists, Turns, and a Few Twirls. My new book follows my path to parenting from pre-birth of my two children all the way to eighteen. Eighteen is when I felt safe again.
So now that my kids are in their twenties, safely out of the scorn of peer pressure and public opinion (I hope), and safely out of the threat of being taken away from me because I’m gay (for sure)…why am I speaking up now?
Because I have to speak up…I only wish someone had done so in my time.
Times have certainly changed. Fathers are now recognized for being active parents who take pretty darn good care of their kids, thank you very much. We’re not just babysitters anymore. Some of us are stay-at-home-dads, some of us are single dads, and yes some of us are gay dads. We have a common love for our children and an undying quest to raise them well.
Gay fathers also now have the right and the ability to have children, to get married, and to lead open and honest lives. Just like moms, just like straight dads, just like everyone else.
I want to share my story to help inspire dads of all forms and flavors to be the best fathers they can be. I want to encourage men to have children on their terms, on their own timetables, in their own unique ways. I want to serve as a role model for those going through the struggles of parenting and gay parenting in particular to prove that you can in fact make it through, happily. If I made it through, then so can you. My family stands proudly in testament to that.
And truthfully, while times have changed, we still suffer. We all still suffer from prejudice and bigotry that threaten our happiness and our way of life. It happens on a daily basis all over the world, and all over our social feeds.
Just take a look at the 2016 US Election. Threats are sent out daily that seek to take us backward. I was there when it was backward, and I don’t want to go back.
I’ve now been with my husband for 18 years, but only legally married for one year thanks to The Supreme Court. I don’t want to go back. We now benefit from being full citizens of the United States, which has not always been the case.
I don’t want to go back.
I don’t want to go back to a time when people perceived fathers as being bumbly fumbly fools who couldn’t be trusted alone with their kids. Change a diaper?
Me, I learned how to do it with one hand! Now there are support groups where experienced dads teach new ones how to run the gamut of caring for their newborns…from diapers to naps to formula.
I don’t want to go back.
I don’t want to go back to a time when we had to stay quiet for fear of being bullied and pushed around. I don’t want to go back to a time when you were afraid to put a picture up in your office for fear of losing a promotion. I don’t want to go back to a time when I worried that my kids would suffer because their dad is gay.
I definitely don’t want to go back to that.
So we all have to speak up, and we all have to do our part.
Share your story too, just like I’ve shared mine, to inspire others to live their lives in a way that brings them happiness. Who could be prejudiced against that? Share your story to help others get rid of the barriers that prevent their happiness. Share your story to let others know that we are out there, because knowledge can bring understanding that can break down walls.
Share your story to prevent us from going back.
That’s why I’m sharing mine, because there is no way that I want to go back.
__________

It was a weird relationship from the get-go; her in Sydney (Australia), me in Wellington (New Zealand).
We met on New Year’s Eve, surrounded by a heaving throng of people. We soon separated ourselves from the crowd. What followed was two nights of excitement, passion and lust.
Basically.
I returned to New Zealand and we stayed in touch. The passion we’d shared on those nights remained at arm’s length, an actual ocean separating us.
Before we knew it, this absence made the heart grow fonder—it kept the light of that whirlwind tryst alive to a point where we were communicating daily via text, even talking over the phone.
What we felt was real, no doubt, but enhanced by the separation. This intensity leaked into our everyday lives. Soon I was talking about her to my mates, as was she to hers.
In sharing this we soon had our first, umm… moment.
Here’s how it played out…
Her: “Seeing as I don’t seem to stop talking about you, my friends are all asking what you’re like”
Me: “Yeah me too. I’m talking about you all the time. What are you saying about me?”
Her: “How great you are and how much I like you. What about you?”
Me: “…Yeah same.”
Her: “Ummm… that was short. Are you really saying how much you like me, or how much you like having sex with me?”
BOOM. Caught. Out.
Me: [Internal monologue] “SHIT”
Me: [Verbally] “What? Yeah of course I’m saying how much I like you.”
Aaaand so it goes for us guys; saying one thing to our mates and another to her. To the boys she was the hot Australian cheerleader who I’d previously enjoyed amazing sex with which had become daily sexting. That was it. That was all I would volunteer. I mean, why would I go anywhere else with it? That’s all the boys were interested in anyway.
Plus if I divulged that I really, genuinely, like really really LIKED her, well, I’d be at risk of ridicule.
Or, if I’m honest, probably thought of as less of a man for sharing my feelings, regardless of whether my mates would have actually expressed so much, it’s the subconscious thought we so easily believe.
I felt strongly for her. Sure the sex was great, but it was the connection, the passion, the desire that made this what it was.
I was aware I felt those things—or some general sense of it—but I wouldn’t dare put them into words and share with the boys. As a result, like many men before me in similar situations, I felt guilty on the phone, caught out, but pushed on through with my lie.
However, this moment stuck with me as a significant difference between men and women.
We love sex. We want sex. It feels good. We think about it a lot. The more the better.
That’s not to say women don’t, not at all. However, there seems to be some evolutionary elements of us men that see us with more desire for it. We won’t go into the science; One—because it can be conflicting, and Two—because we don’t have time.
Let’s just cut to it.
Sex feels good. We love it, we want it. Simple, right?
Maybe not …
Firstly, our ability to get sex has become one of our major measures of success and validation as a man—the hotter the partner the better. We allow our own measure of success and worth to be dictated by others with this as a significant parameter, feeding our ego.
Be honest with yourself, have you ever (or often):

• Predominantly remarked on her looks and/or the sex?
• Predominantly asked your mates questions about her looks and/or the sex?
• Been subject to those questions above other aspects of the connection from your mates/other men?
• Regularly taken part in conversation that centres on women’s appearance and sex?
• Favouring the above in place or favour of talking about your feelings and what she means to you?

It can seem innocent; we’re men, we have a high sex drive.
We most certainly do, and it is something to enjoy and engage in when it comes from a healthy balanced place. However, constantly and nonchalantly objectifying women isn’t cool, nor is it a path to true equality. Moreover, it shows our fixation on, and need for, external validation with our sexual prowess as the measure of and vehicle for that.
It’s a viscous cycle that prevents quality connections, but also hands all of our personal power away, into the hands of others depending on what they say or how they react.
Where does this come from?
As boys we are conditioned into presenting a false picture of manhood through constant messages such as “man up/harden up/toughen up”, “don’t cry”, “don’t be a pussy/girl/fag”. At the slightest sign of emotion we learn to shut it away and sort it out ourselves because “boys/men don’t do that”.
As a result we develop this inner narrative “I’ll be right. I have to be”. We’ve fallen into the trap of needing to be liked, fit into the crowd, to prove our manhood; to be tough and handle things ourselves and do the things men do.
Then we become teenagers, and the need to fit in strengthens.
This masculine measure of success via sex hits like an avalanche.
It’s not only this, there are a few others:

• Athletic ability and/or physicality; how good you are at sports/athletic endeavours and what shape your body is in.
• Financial success; more money means more security, means more power and/or ‘freedom’.

These often strengthen as we become men. We might pinpoint one or two and focus on them.
Either way it can easily consume our lives.
Soon what we seek is a great body, sex, money and a loose concept of freedom in a culture of more is better; more success and subsequent respect.
However, what these commonly translate to goes much deeper. While these can all be in the chase for sexual success, we’re going to keep it to the physical for this post. Sure getting in physical shape is good for us and we should all seek it out in order to better serve ourselves and those around us.
What we have to do is ask ourselves WHY we seek getting the ‘lean and ripped’ body.
On the surface it’s because looking better means more appeal, means more sex appeal, means more… sex. Ask yourself why.
Using “be attractive”, “meet women”, or “to get sex” to power any physical change may work initially, but it won’t last and isn’t going to lead anywhere meaningful because it’s missing the point of what that sex provides.
The issue with blindly seeking more sex
It’s all wrapped up in external validation for our ego; either from other men, or from the women validating us by wanting us; we’re allowing the judgements of others to determine our sense of worth.
This is where you have to be truly honest with yourself and ask:
Do I want sex purely because it feels good?
Is it also because the kudos I’ll get?
What else do I want beyond this physical gratification and kudos?
Is it something deeper..?
When we honestly dig in, it usually is.
As humans we seek connection, as men this extends to significance.
Beyond the physical, sex provides both connection and significance; a feeling of being desired, accepted and worthy.
This is what we need to own; to be desired, to be significant and accepted. The sex that comes with this is connection is what makes us feel best. It’s a double whammy; the physical satisfaction of sex and the emotional feelings of connection and significance.
Think about it – ever had sex (one night stand or wrong relationship) and immediately afterwards felt something like regret or emptiness?
No connection, no significance.
Clinical psychologist and author of Women Who Stray David J Ley Ph.D. comments on this in a piece for Psychology today:
For men, physical affection and sex is one of the main ways we feel loved, accepted, and regarded. For many men, it is only through physical love that we can voice tenderness and express our desire for togetherness and physical bonding. Only in sex can we let down boundaries and drop our armour enough to be emotionally vulnerable.
Internal validation then external
If you’re ahead of the game here you’ll realize that these things—significance, acceptance, being desired—they’re still external validation; they all speak to being respected, trusted and worthy from others.
We must first internalize this by being happy in our own skin. Knowing what truly drives you will provide self-worth, self-trust and self-respect. Then you can own that sex with someone (beyond the physical) brings you feelings of significance, desirability and acceptance by that person; connection with another human.
That’s some deep shit we don’t get taught in sex-ed. In fact, education around sex can be terrible and often focuses on a lot of negative aspects in the name of preventing its occurrence, instead of teaching boys the emotional benefits as well as the more obvious physical conversation.
It all starts with the relationship you have with yourself.
Don’t fall into the trap of blindly using sex for the physical pleasure and the external validation we get from others as a measure of our success as a man without first acknowledging the connection it brings. If you don’t think that describes you, know that it goes so much deeper than the physical and into the connection/significance we need to feel.
Be careful to use sex as one-sided external validation from women without understanding the deeper connection we actually seek.
Don’t compare yourself to others or use their benchmark; instead ask what you truly desire.
If sex comes into that equation, then dig deeper and have a think about what that sex provides for you. Seek meaningful validation based on your deepest desires and human connection, not to temporarily soothe the ego.
Read More By Mike Campbell on the ManTalks Blog
How To Escape the Inner Man Cave of Isolation
The Sweet Spot for Modern Masculinity
__________