Mental Health

Part 1 — Men and Mental Health, What Are We Missing?

            I  have been interested in men’s mental, emotional, and relational health for a long time. When I was five years old my mid-life father became increasingly irritable, angry, and depressed because he felt he couldn’t support our family, my mother and me, doing the work he loved. In desperation he took an overdose of sleeping pills to stop the pain. Fortunately, he didn’t die, but  our lives were never the same. He was committed to Camarillo State Mental Hospital.

             My father had been an actor in New York and moved to California with the hopes of working in the emerging movie and television industry. But like many creative artists of the period he ran into the “red scare,” was blacklisted, and couldn’t find work. His time in the mental hospital only made him worse. I grew up wondering what happened to my father, when it would happen to me, and how I could prevent it from happening to other families.

            After graduating from college I was accepted into U.C. San Francisco Medical School with hopes of becoming a psychiatrist. I hoped to learn and develop the skills to help men like my father as well as the families who love them. However, medicine, at the time, was too restrictive for me and I transferred to U.C. Berkeley where I earned my Master of Social Work Degree. My initial interest focused on addiction medicine, but I soon expanded my work to include Gender-Specific Medicine and men’s health. I later returned to school and earned a PhD in International Health. My dissertation research was published as a book: Male vs. Female Depression: Why Men Act Out and Women Act In.

            Following the birth of our first son, Jemal, in 1969 and daughter, Angela, in 1972, I launched MenAlive.com as my window to the world to house my books, articles, and on-line programs. I’ve had seventeen books published including international best-sellers Male Menopause and The Irritable Male Syndrome: Understanding and Managing the 4 Key Causes of Depression and Aggression, as well as trend-setting books including Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: Overcoming Romantic and Sexual Addictions, The Warrior’s Journey Home: Healing Men, Healing the Planet, Stress Relief for Men, and Long Live Men! The Moonshot Mission to Heal Men, Close the Lifespan Gap, and Offer Hope to Humanity.

            The field of gender-specific healing and men’s mental health has grown considerably since I began in 1972. I estimate that there are now at least a thousand organizations that focus on various aspects of men’s health. In 2021, I invited several colleagues who were doing great work to join me in what I called my Moonshot Mission for Mankind and Humanity. We began meeting monthly to get to know each other, share ideas, and create an on-line hub to bring individuals and organizations together to help men live fully healthy lives.

            With the help and support of one of our founding members, Joe Conrad, Founder and CEO of Man Therapy, we developed a website and introductory film at MoonshotforMankind.com.  I believe that men are both the “canaries in the coalmine” alerting us to the problems faced by humanity and also they are the key players in solving the problems that undermine the health of all. The Moonshot site shares our vision and call to connect:

“The journey to heal humanity has begun.”

Our Moonshot vision can be summarized simply:

            “We believe man’s mental, emotional, and relational health is the key to empowering men to live long and well. Our mission is to help men live healthier, happier, more cooperative lives—fulfilling lives of purpose and productivity, where men are supported and valued as they make positive contributions to their families, friends, and communities. When that happens, families grow stronger, communities prosper, and humanity takes its next leap forward.”

Men and Mental Health: What Are We Missing?

            According to report by Derek M. Griffith, PhD, Ayo Ogunbiyi, MPH, and Emily Jaeger, MPH at Georgetown University’s Center for Men’s Health Equity,

“Men aren’t the problem. The way that we — society as a whole and health care providers specifically — treat them is.”

In an April 2, 2024 article titled “Men and mental health: What are we missing?,” they detail a number of important issues that we often fail to address including the following:

• It is time that primary care physicians, mental health service providers, and policymakers look critically at the accuracy and utility of their assumptions and explanations for men’s rates of depression, anxiety, burnout, substance abuse, and other common mental health conditions.

• 40% of men with a reported mental illness received mental health care services in the past year, compared with 52% of women with a reported mental illness, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

• The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the crisis of men’s mental health.

• The uncertainty of the pandemic, loneliness from social distancing, financial stresses, relationship challenges, and other contextual factors contributed to increased rates of men having difficulty sleeping, alcohol and substance use, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms.

• Traditionally, men are socialized to define their worth by their ability to contribute economically to a household. However, as the labor market has shifted away from traditionally male-dominated jobs, men must now redefine their worth outside of their employment, income, and home.

• The notion of “precarious manhood,” which is the belief that manhood is an achieved social status that must be earned and constantly defended, means that men may feel it is their character — rather than their behavior — being judged during more tumultuous economic times.

• Even when men seek care, that care often falls short. Data from Canada and the United States found that more than 60% of men who died by suicide had accessed mental health care services within the previous year.

• When men do seek mental health care services, it is not uncommon for them to feel that providers mislabel and underestimate their needs, and that these providers do not seem to have a genuine interest in their problems.

• The fact that men are diagnosed with depression at lower rates than women, despite their higher rates of suicide, substance use, and violent behavior, suggests that more could be done to improve the tools used to diagnose men with depression.

• While some mental health care service providers may be gender sensitive and recognize the ways that aggressiveness, alcohol use, and risky behavior are part of the presenting symptoms men with depression may exhibit, there are few courses and trainings that focus on gender differences in mental health, potentially leading to mental health care service providers being less equipped to serve and offer gender-sensitive resources to men.

            We need a new approach for addressing men’s mental health issues. In the second part of this series, I will address the reality that men’s mental health issues don’t just impact men. They impact everyone. If you’d like to read more articles like these, please visit me at MenAlive.com and receive our free newsletter with new articles and tools you can use to improve your mental, emotional, and relational health. 

The post The Future of Men’s Mental Health appeared first on MenAlive.

“Human beings are creatures of belonging which we achieve through three marriages. First, through relationship with other people and other things (particularly and very personally, to one other person in relationship or marriage); second, through work; and third, through an understanding of what it means to be themselves.” David Whyte, The Three Marriages: Reimaging Work, Self and Relationship.

            For more than fifty years I have helped people achieve success in all three kinds of relationships. Like many I married young. My wife and I were together for ten years and had two children before our marriage broke up. After a time of pain and healing, I fell in love again, and remarried. Looking back, I can see that one was a rebound relationship and it too ended.

            Endings are painful for everyone, but when you’re a marriage and family counselor who makes his living helping fix relationships, it is not only painful, but shameful as well. I talk about it on my website, MenAlive.com in an introductory video, “Confessions of a Twice-Divorced Marriage Counselor.” Fortunately, I got my own help, worked through unhealed trauma from my past, and learned what it truly takes to have a successful marriage. My wife, Carlin, and I have been happily married for forty-four years.

            We all want a life that is happy and joyful, but how to achieve success is not often clear and easy.

“If you have to make one life choice, right now, to set yourself on the path to future health and happiness, what would it be?”

This question was asked by two world-renowned social scientists, Robert Waldinger, MD and Marc Schulz, PhD.

            Dr. Waldinger is professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Harvard Study on Adult Development. Dr. Schultz is the associate director. The Harvard Study is the longest scientific study of happiness ever conducted. It began in 1938 and offers the most scientifically supported guidance for achieving a great life.

            The latest findings are reported in Waldinger’s and Schulz’s book, The Good Life: Lessons From The World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness. In a 2007 survey, millennials were asked about their most important life goals. Seventy-six percent said that becoming rich was their number one goal. Fifty percent said a major goal was to become famous. More than a decade later, after millennials had spent more time as adults, similar questions were asked again. Fame was now lower on the list, but top goals again included things like making money, having a successful career, and becoming debt-free.

            What does the data from thousands of interviews over eighty-six years tell us? If we want a great life what is the one thing that is more important than others? The answer can be stated in three simple words: Create Good Relationships.

“In fact, good relationships are significant enough that if we had to take all eighty-six years of the Harvard Study,”

say Drs. Waldinger and Schulz,

“and boil it down to a single principle for living, one life investment that is supported by similar findings across a wide variety of other studies, it would be this:

            “Good Relationships keep us healthier and happier. Period.”

The Three Marriages We Must Embrace to Have a Successful Life

            In his book The Three Marriages: Reimaging Work, Self and Relationship, David Whyte says,

“Despite our use of the word “marriage” only for a committed relationship between two people, “in reality everyone is committed consciously or unconsciously to three marriages.”

            Whyte goes on to say,

“There is that first marriage, the one we usually mean, to another; that second marriage, which can so often seem like a burden, to work or vocation; and that third and most likely hidden marriage to a core conversation inside ourselves. We can call these three separate commitments marriages because at their core they are usually lifelong commitments and, as I wish to illustrate, they involve vows made either consciously or unconsciously.”

            For most of my life I tried to find a balance between my work life and my love life. The truth is that I was much better at work than I was at love. It is not surprising. I had my first job when I was seven years old. My father had left when I was five, committed to a mental hospital after taking an overdose of sleeping pills because he had become increasingly stressed and depressed because he couldn’t make a living to support my mother and me.

            With my father gone, my mother had to find work outside the home. We had little money beyond what was needed for the essentials, so I learned early to work for anything I truly wanted. I got good at work, but like many who grew up without a father and mother at home, what I learned about having a healthy and happy married life was minimal and I was too busy hustling for my next job success to have time to wonder about what it meant to get to know my true self.

            For too many of us we feel like we are going up and down on a teeter-totter with our work and love lives competing for our attention while our personhood often gets neglected and forgotten. David Whyte offers us all a great service when he suggests this basic reality:

            “Each of those marriages, is at its heart, nonnegotiable. We should give up the attempt to balance one  against another, of, for instance, taking away from work to give more time to a partner, or vice versa, and start thinking of each marriage conversing with, questioning, or emboldening the other two.”

            With the framework of the three marriages, we can ask ourselves where we might need improvement. Here’s a little scale I find useful.

How would you rate yourself in all five areas? I feel successful in all five areas, but it has been a lifelong process of healing and learning. I still have a way to go yet, like all of us. My score was 24. How about yours?

Bringing It All Together

            For me, I have come to see achieving success at the three marriages as a true hero’s journey, one that lasts a lifetime. My wife, Carlin, is part Native American. In our area, there are several women who weave beautiful baskets made out of local materials that grow in nature. A well-known basket weaver described a well-made basket as a metaphor for creating a great life.

            Here’s how she describes the process.

“Our life is a basket woven from many different strands, each essential for a strong container. Each part of our life is one strand in this basket.It’s impossible to weave multiple strands at the same time; we need to attend to the strand that requires our attention without losing awareness of the others. Every strand will get our attention—just not all at the same time. I know I give attention to where I am most needed, knowing that I will then move on to the next demand. The basket holds my life as I strengthen individual strands. I’m no longer on a teeter-totter—I am weaving my life into something whole and lovely.”

            When I reflect on my own life, there are times when I must focus on my wife, Carlin, knowing that there are other parts of my life that will require my attention at another time. At other times, one of our five children or seventeen grandchildren all for my attention. Yet, I can’t ever forget my work and my commitment to my calling. Running through all these “strands of my basket” is my commitment to my deepest self, getting to know who I really am and learning to love the man I am with all my flaws as well as my gifts.

            I have written about how I have integrated these strands in the books I have written. If you are interested in learning about me and my work, I recommend, Inside Out: Becoming My Own Man, 12 Rules for Good Men, and Long Live Men: The Moonshot Mission to Heal Men, Close the Lifespan Gap, and Offer Hope for Humanity.

            If you want to learn more about me and my relationship life, I recommend The Enlightened Marriage: The 5 Transformative Stages of Relationship and Why the Best is Still to Come, My Distant Dad: Healing the Family Father Wound, and Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: Overcoming Romantic and Sexual Addictions.

            If you would like to take one of my on-line courses, I recommend:

            Navigating the 5 Stages of Love.

            Healing the Irritable Male Syndrome.

            Healing the Family Father Wound.

            If you would like to join our mission to improve the lives of men and their families, I recommend:

            The Moonshot for Mankind and Humanity.

            If you would like to do individual or couple counseling with me, drop me a note at Jed@MenAlive.com and put “Counseling” in the subject line. I will send you the information.             If you would like to receive my free weekly newsletter with updates and new articles, you can sign up here.

The post How to Become Successful at the Three Essential Marriages for Achieving a Great Life appeared first on MenAlive.

It isn’t easy being a man in today’s world. The same is true for being a woman. Finding the right partner and creating a joyful, long-lasting, marriage is truly a miracle. In their book. In their book, A Couple of Miracles: One Couple, More Than a Few Miracles, Joyce and Barry Vissell share their life journey. Joyce, a nurse/psychotherapist and Barry doctor/psychiatrist, offer wisdom for men, women, and couples who are wanting to find the secrets for a long and successful life, career, and marriage.

            I have known Joyce and Barry for many years. My wife, Carlin, and I attended a couple’s retreat with them to celebrate our tenth anniversary. Our forty-four-year marriage has been enriched by our time with Joyce and Barry.

            Joyce and Barry have been a couple since 1964, have raised three children, written ten books, and helped countless people in their workshops and counseling practice. They can be reached at SharedHeart.org. I recently did a podcast interview with Barry and we explored their work, the new book, Barry’s work with men, Joyce’s work with women, and their joint work with couples.

I recently attended a men’s retreat with Barry and seventeen other men from around the country. It was a unique and wonderful experience that I recommend to all men. From the very beginning Barry invited us all to be vulnerable and share the real challenges we were facing in our lives. He started by sharing his own, things that most of us hide, even from ourselves.

“We need to let our partners see us more deeply,”

said Barry.

“We need to feel and express our feelings. Men sometimes feel hurt or afraid, but we’re often taught to keep it well hidden.”

Barry went on to share some of the real problems that he and Joyce have experienced in their own lives. As others shared, hearts opened, tears were shed. We talked about our hopes and dreams and our losses and betrayals.

I shared my experiences, having been married twice before, and the shame I felt being  “a twice-divorced marriage and family counselor.” I talked about my forty-four-year marriage to my wife, Carlin, and my fear and anguish at the thought of losing her.

Barry shared his own fears of what he would do if Joyce died. Other men opened up about broken promises and broken marriages. Several men had recently dealt with relationships that had recently ended and shared their pain and anger.

 “Outwardly, we often present a strong, competent image,”

said Barry.

“Showing our human frailty to our loved ones gives them a very wonderful gift of love. When we feel sad, instead of covering it up with activity, we can share it with a loved one. Instead of jumping into an angry posture every time we feel hurt, the vulnerable and courageous approach is to reveal the hurt feelings directly, without anger or resentment.”

Barry acknowledged that many of us were in relationship with strong, competent, women. He encouraged us to also recognize “the little girl” that lives inside each of the women in our lives.

When I returned home after the end of the retreat, I shared what Barry had said about “the little girl” within. Carlin wept with recognition.

“I’ve spent my whole life taking care of others,”

Carlin said.

“I haven’t done a very good job taking care of the little girl inside me.

I held her and let her little girl be vulnerable, as she has so often held me as I let the little boy in me reveal his worries, fears, and pain.  I used to think that it was manly to suffer in silence, to be forever strong for others. But I now know that our vulnerability is our real superpower.

I have been somewhat obsessed with life and death for a long time now. When I was five years old my father took an overdose of sleeping pills when he became increasingly depressed because he couldn’t support his family doing the work he loved. Though he didn’t die, our lives were never the same. I grew up wondering what happened to my father and when it would happen to me. For most of my life I blocked out the terror of my childhood.

I grew up like many males, denying my own vulnerability, and imagined that if I were smart enough and successful enough I could outrun my fears and furies. At various times I acted like I was the lone wolf, top dog, alpha male, lone ranger, superman. I didn’t trust others, particularly other guys, who I felt I needed to compete against in order to get women, money, power, and glory I craved.

That changed for me when I joined my first men’s group in 1979. Carlin has said on many occasions that the reason she believes we have had a successful forty-four-year marriage is because I’ve been in a men’s group for forty-five years. Our group continues to meet, though three of our members have died. I’m now the eldest member of the group as I recently celebrated my 80^th birthday.

Carlin has also been in several women’s groups which give her the love and support that only women can give. We also have been in a mixed group, we call “The Village Circle” where men and women can learn to love and support each other.

Joyce and Barry have had a similar path and offer counseling, retreats, and much more. You can get their latest information at SharedHeart.org. The world needs more miracles. We need each other and the world needs each of us to be the best men and women we can be.

We live in challenging times. Vaclav Havel, Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright and dissident, offers an important truth about the times in which we live.

“I think there are good reasons for suggesting that the modern age has ended. Today, many things indicate that we are going through a transitional period, when it seems that something is on the way out and something else is painfully being born. It is as if something were crumbling, decaying, and exhausting itself, while something else, still indistinct, were arising from the rubble.”

In a recent article, “Men and Relationships,” Barry says,

“Over the years of working with men and their relationships, not to mention my own 59-year relationship with Joyce, I have seen some central issues emerge.”

He goes on to enumerate eight areas that are particularly important. Number eight is “Reach Out More to Other Men.”

Barry says,

“Many men tend to isolate themselves from meaningful relationships with other men. I have observed that many men are nearly starved for father/brother love. Because of our fear of this need, we have pushed away half the population of the earth. Practice vulnerability with other men, and you will find it becomes even easier to be vulnerable with your partner. Deepening your friendship with a man leads to deepening your friendship with yourself. And this allows you to become more accessible to your partner.”

Barry and Joyce practice what they recommend to others. Both Carlin and I have benefitted from their wisdom over the years. You will too. You can visit Barry and Joyce here.

If you appreciate articles like these, come visit me, Jed Diamond, here.  

The post The Miracle of Men, Women, and Couples: Allowing Our Vulnerabilities to Bring Us Together appeared first on MenAlive.

Part 3 – What We Can Do

There is a worldwide contagious disease that most of us have experienced, but very few understand. According to the man who first identified this disease, Alvin Toffler,

“It will not be found in Index Medicus or in any listing of psychological abnormalities. Yet, unless intelligent steps are taken to combat it, millions of human beings will find themselves increasingly disoriented, progressively incompetent to deal rationally with their environments. The malaise, mass neurosis, irrationality, and free-floating violence already apparent in contemporary life are merely a foretaste of what may lie ahead unless we come to understand and treat this disease.”

Most healthcare professionals see the effects of this disease in their practices. Most are suffering from it themselves but aren’t even aware that they have been infected. It is called “Future Shock” and the human species has been impacted for a long time. Here’s how Toffler described this disease when he first wrote about it in 1965 in an article in Horizon magazine:

“I coined the term ‘future shock’ to describe the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time.”

Toffler goes on to say in his book, Future Shock.

“It became clear that future shock is no longer a distantly potential danger, but a real sickness from which increasingly large numbers of already suffer. This psycho-biological condition can be described in medical and psychiatric terms. It is the disease of change.”

I think we can all agree that change of all kinds has continued to accelerate since 1970, but we have not taken the “intelligent steps to combat it” that Toffler called on us to address fifty-four years ago. Since then, there is another disease we have failed to address. In addition to the disease of change, we are experiencing a disease of complexity.

The latter problem was described by Rebecca Costa in her book, The Watchman’s Rattle: A Radical New Theory of Collapse that was published in 2010. She examined complex cultures throughout the world and described what happens when our human brains are unable to handle the complexity of society.

Costa examined past civilizations that had collapsed from the Mayans to the Roman Empire to see what we could learn that would help us address our current culture and predict whether we are heading for collapse. She found a numerous early warning signs including the following:

1. Gridlock. Like a major traffic jam, major parts of the system fail to function.

“A civilization insists on deploying methos once used to resolve smaller simpler problems to solve larger, more complex issues. Although these methods repeatedly fail, like a swimmer caught in an undertow, we stubbornly pursue variations of the same failed solutions decade after decade.” 

2. Irrational Opposition.

“Irrational opposition occurs when the act of rejecting, criticizing, suppressing, ignoring, misrepresenting, marginalizing, and resisting rational solutions becomes the accepted norm.” 

3. The Personalization of Blame.

“Throughout history civilizations have had a clear pattern of foisting the responsibility for complex problems onto the shoulders of individuals whenever complex problems persist.”

4. Silo Thinking. “Silo thinking,” says Costa,

“is the compartmentalized thinking and behavior that prohibits the collaboration needed to address complex problems. Instead of encouraging cooperation between individuals and groups that share a common objective, silo thinking causes undermining, competition, and divisiveness.”

5. Extreme Economics.

“When simple principles in business, such as risk/reward and profit/loss, become the litmus test for determining the value of people and priorities, initiatives and institutions.”

            While many have hoped, and continue to hope, that with enough education and insight we can avoid the collapse that so many previous civilizations have experienced, there is increasing recognition that we have passed the point of no return. Humans have so disrupted many of our human life-support systems that collapse is inevitable.

            The world-renowned biologist E.O. Wilson summarizes the human dilemma.

“The real problem of humanity is that we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and God-like technology. We’re a mixed-up, and in many ways, an archaic species in transition.”

            Although healthcare professionals and the general public may not be aware of future shock and diseases of change and complexity, we are all aware of problems of anxiety. In his book, Anxious: Using The Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety, Joseph LeDoux says,

“Collectively fear and anxiety disorders are the most prevalent of all psychiatric problems in the United States, affecting about twenty  percent of the population with an associated economic cost estimated to exceed $40 billion annually.”

            Judson Brewer, MD, PhD, author of Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind, says,

“Anxiety is everywhere. It always has been. But in the last several years, it has come to dominate our lives in a way that it perhaps never has.”

            Dr. Wendy Suzuki is a professor of neural science and psychology at the Center for Neural Science at New York University and is a celebrated international authority on neuroplasticity. In her book, Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion, she says,

“We live in an age of anxiety. Like an omnipresent, noxious odor we’ve grown used to, anxiety has become a constant condition, a fact of life on this planet. From global pandemics to crashing economies, to intense, daily family challenges, we have plenty of justifiable reasons to feel anxious.”

            Clearly healthcare professionals are not only not immune to these problems, but we may actually be at higher risk because of who we are, where and how we work, and are feelings of professional responsibility to help those in need. We may need special support communities to help to keep ourselves sane so that we can help others.

            In her powerful and hopeful book, Who Do We Choose to Be? Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, and Restoring Sanity, cultural pathfinder and author Margaret Wheatley, says,

“My aspiration is for you to see clearly so that you may act wisely. If we don’t know where we are, if we don’t know what to prepare for, then any path we choose will keep us wandering in the wilderness, increasingly desperate, increasingly lost.”

            As someone who has been working as a healthcare professional for more than fifty years, I have come to realize that we will continue to undermine our own health if we act like “lone rangers” fighting to change things on our own. We either become as dysfunctional as the systems we are trying to change or our own mental, emotional, and relational health is compromised.

Margaret Wheately has an answer that I have found to be workable and effective.

“As leaders dedicated to serving the causes and people we treasure, confronted by this unrelenting tsunami, what are we to do?, says Wheatley. My answer to this is also stated with full confidence: We need to restore sanity by awakening the human spirit. We can only achieve this if we undertake the most challenging and meaningful work of our leader lives: creating Islands of Sanity.”

She goes on to say,

“An Island of Sanity is a gift of possibility and refuge created by people’s commitment to form healthy community to do meaningful work. It requires sane leaders with unshakable faith in people’s innate generosity, creativity, and kindness.”

In her new book, Restoring Sanity: Practices to Awaken Generosity, Creativity & Kindness in Ourselves and Our Organizations, she offers guidance and practical wisdom for creating and sustaining Islands of Sanity. I created my own Island of Sanity in 1979 when I joined a men’s group. We began as seven guys who made a commitment to support each other so we could do the work we knew was important in the world while staying sane. I wrote about our experiences in an article “’Til Death Do Us Part: The Life and Times of My 45-Year-Old Men’s Group.”

If you would like to learn more about my books, training programs, and current thinking, you can contact me at MenAlive.com.  

The post Healer Heal Thyself: Why Health Care Professionals Are Becoming Stressed, Depressed, and Suicidal appeared first on MenAlive.

Part 2: The Future of Gender-Specific Healthcare

            In Part 1, I discussed some of my own challenges as a health care professional who has been working in the field for more than fifty years. I also described the challenges facing health care providers today and why so many are leaving the profession. I introduced you to the importance of the emerging field of Gender-Specific Medicine and its founder, Dr. Marianne J. Legato.

I recently interviewed Dr. Legato for my podcast at MenAlive. She discussed the evolution of the field of gender-specific medicine, which began with a focus on women’s unmet medical needs and now is increasingly addressing men’s health needs. She says,

“The premature death of men is the most important—and neglected—health issue of our time.”

            For Dr. Legato, her passion for gender-specific medicine is personal, not just professional.

“My physician father illustrated many of the biological and societal hazards of being male. My mother outlived him by a decade, mourning his absence every day.”

In her book, Why Men Die First: How to Lengthen Your Lifespan, she says,

“My father’s lifestyle was not conducive to a long and healthy life. He had what I came to consider the quintessentially male nature:

He worked with an amazing tenacity at his vocation and he never asked anyone for help or complained about the burdens it placed on him. He gook risks that were unnecessary, asked no one for advice or counsel, smoked three packs of Philip Morris cigarettes a day, ate huge amounts of pasta, oiled vegetables, and rich Italian pastries, and frequently finished his long day with a generous helping of Scotch on the rocks in one of the beautifully faceted crystal glasses he favored.”

            She concludes,

“It all took a toll. He was often despondent and had outbursts of temper that were the result of what I now think was chronic depression. I think he would have considered the idea of confiding any of his issues to a psychiatrist, much less taking medications for his all-too-frequent sieges of depression, unthinkable.”

            That could well have been my story and I feel grateful that I was able to break out of my denial. My wife helped, but so did another health care provider, Kay Redfield Jamison. Dr. Jamison is one of the world’s leading experts on depression and bipolar disorder and wrote the definitive text. In her book, An Unquiet Mind: Memoir of Moods and Madness, she reveals her own struggles with mood disorders.

            When I read her story, particularly the following words describing her own condition, which exactly mirrored my own, I knew I had found a kindred spirit.

            “Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. But these experiences carry with them feelings. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. It is also tiresome. People cannot abide being around you when you are depressed. They might think that they ought to, and they might even try, but you know and they know that you are tedious beyond belief.”

            She ends with these words that still run through me many years after I have successfully completed treatment:

“You’re irritable and paranoid and humorless and lifeless and critical and demanding and no reassurance is ever enough. You’re frightened, and you’re frightening, and you’re ‘not at all like yourself but will be soon,’ but you know you won’t.”

            I feel blessed to have gotten the help I needed, even when I was resistant to receiving it. Things are changing, led my both men and women who recognize that men’s and women’s health issues cannot be separated and must be achieved together. One man who has been a leading voice and advocate for men and boys in the world is Gary Barker, founder of Promundo.

In a TED talk in October, 2023, “A Reframing Masculinity, Rooted in Empathy,” he says that violence in the world is a male problem, but it’s one that be changed.

“We are the most wired-to-care species on the planet. Our neurological systems, our hormonal systems, are wired to care, to nurture, to love, to form attachments with others. But it’s not automatic. If you don’t use it, if you close it off, if you hide, you don’t get good at it. But if you try and if you practice and if you learn it, you do get good at it. Even the man who seems most cut off from the world can learn it.”

            Another man who is breaking new ground is Richard V. Reeves. I was sent an advance copy of his book, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It.

            I interviewed Reeves and learned that he has had a long interest in gender-specific healing and men’s health.

“I have been worrying about boys and men for 25 years,”

he says.

“It became clear to me that the problems of boys and men are structural in nature, rather than individual; but are rarely treated as such. The problem with men is typically framed as a problem of men. It is men who must be fixed, one man or boy at a time. This individualist approach is wrong.”

            Reeves recently founded the American Institute for Boys and Men (AIBM).

“Too many boys and men are struggling – at school, at work, and in their families and communities,”

says Reeves.

“The American Institute for Boys & Men is the first national organization committed to objective research and policy development to enhance the wellbeing of boys and men.

            In a recent article posted by AIBM, “Where Are the Men: Male Representation in Social Work and Psychology,” they say,

“Mental health needs are pervasive among men, yet the share of men meeting those needs in mental health professions is low and declining. Key Takeaways include:

• Men account for only 18% of social workers and 20% of psychologists. The shortage of men is particularly severe in subfields like child and school psychology.

• The representation of men in these mental health professions has halved in recent decades, down from a male share of 38% in social work and 68% in psychology in 1968 [the year I graduated from U.C. Berkeley].

• This downward trend looks set to continue: the male share of recipients of master’s degrees and above is 20% in psychology and 12% in social work, and men in psychology are on average older than women.

• Men are less likely to seek mental health support: in 2022, 27% of women spoke to a mental health professional or took medication for anxiety or depression compared to only 16% of men.”

We need more male health care professionals and we need more men who are trained in understanding gender-specific medicine and health care. I will be offering a series of courses later this year to address these needs. In a recent article “Calling All Men: Are You Ready to Get Healthy in Body, Mind, and Spirit in 2024?,” I describe what I will be offering.

If you’re interested in learning more, drop me an email to Jed@Menalive.com. Put “Men’s Courses” in the subject line.

To read more articles like these, please consider subscribing to my free newsletter.

In Part 3 of the series, I will discuss additional healing tools that healthcare professionals need to know about in order to improve their own health and wellbeing as well as those we serve.

The post Healer Heal Thyself: Why Health Care Professionals Are Becoming Stressed, Depressed, and Suicidal appeared first on MenAlive.

I have been providing mental health services to men, women, and families since 1968. Like many mental healthcare providers, my desire to help others began in my family. When I was five years old, my mid-life father took an overdose of sleeping pills. He had become increasingly depressed because he couldn’t make a living during what he loved to do to support his family.

            Though he didn’t die, our lives were never the same. He was committed to Camarillo State Mental Hospital, north of where we lived in Los Angeles. The treatment available then was far worse than it is today. He didn’t get better. His mental health deteriorated, but the doctors told our family that he just needed more “treatment.”

            I grew up wondering what happened to my father, when it would happen to me, and what I could do to prevent other families from suffering as we had. I graduated from college and was accepted into medical school in 1965. I thought I wanted to become a psychiatrist. On a conscious level, I wanted to help others like my father. On a deeper level I was terrified that I would become mentally ill and end up being locked up like my dad. I thought if I could get fully educated about mental health, I could keep mental illness from coming into my life.

            Medical school at the time felt much too narrow to address all the inter-related physical, mental, emotional, relational, social, and spiritual problems that I knew someone with mental illness must address. I soon transferred from U.C. San Francisco Medical School to U.C. Berkeley School of Social Welfare where a wider range of problems were addressed and I joined a program that taught a more varied arsenal of interventions.

            Like most new graduates with a professional degree, I began working in various healthcare settings. I began working at the mental hospital where I had done my most recent field placement, later I spent several years working in various settings helping people recover from a variety of addictions.

            Over the last forty years I have worked in the emerging field of Gender-Specific Medicine where I have specialized in helping men and their families. Following the publication of my first book Inside Out: Becoming My Own Man in 1983, I launched MenAlive. I offer a variety of resources to help men and their families to live fully, love deeply, and make a positive difference in the world.

            In weekly articles I share what I’ve learned from my professional practice over the last fifty-plus years. I also am open about what I have learned from addressing my own mental health issues. I call myself a “two-hatter.” One hat is the one I wear when I work with clients who come to me for help. The other hat is the one I wear when I am getting help with my own mental health challenges.

I wrote about my mental health journey in several my books including Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: Overcoming Romantic and Sexual Addictions, Stress Relief for Men, and The Irritable Male Syndrome: Understanding and Managing the 4 Key Causes of Depression and Aggression.

I also write a weekly newsletter where I share articles that can help others. In one, “Being Bipolar: Living in a World of Fire and Ice,” I describe my own healing journey with mental illness.

“Most people don’t know I’m bipolar,”

I say in the article.

“After  years of loving kindness shown to me by my wife, therapy with a caring and skilling therapist, and medications to help keep me in balance, my illness is in remission.”

As I’ve learned over the years, both as a provider of mental health services and one seeking information and help to treat my own problems, finding good resources and help is not easy.

Let’s face it, we are living in crazy times, where the whole world seems angry, anxious, stressed, and depressed and things are getting worse. In 2018 the American Psychological Association surveyed a thousand U.S. adults about their sources and levels of anxiety. The APA found that 39% of Americans reported being more anxious than they were in 2017, and an equal amount (39%) had the same level of anxiety as the previous year. That’s nearly 80% of the population experiencing anxiety.

What are people most concerned about? The APA survey reported that:

• 68% worried about health and safety.

• 67% reported finances as their source of anxiety.

• 56% were stressed about our political system and elections.

The APA also found that 63% of Americans felt that the future of the nation was a large source of stress. 59% checked the box that “the United States is at the lowest point they can remember in history.”

Clearly with statistics like these, we can no longer view “mental illness” as simply a problem of individuals. We are experiencing a problem of whole systems collapsing and we need to develop new systems to bring about repair. My colleague, Margaret J. Wheatley, author of the book, Who Do We Choose to Be? Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership says,

“Our task is to create Islands of Sanity, both internally and within our sphere of influence, where sanity prevails, where people can recall and practice the best human qualities of generosity, caring, creativity, and community.”

WebShrink: Bringing Mental Health Seekers and Mental Health Providers Together

            I first learned about Webshrink when I received an email from Dr. Edward Bilotti. It began,

“Dear Jed, we need your help.”

            As you know from reading thus far, I’m all about helping others. Dr. Bilotti went on to say:

            “When it comes to mental health, the internet can be a crowded and confusing place for those seeking answers. People need a place where they’ll find appropriate information and help. They need a safe place where the important work we do as mental health professionals is honored, and topics are presented respectfully.

            “That’s why I founded Webshrink. The name might be a bit tongue-in-cheek, but the topic couldn’t be more serious. Webshrink’s mission is to:

•  Be the go-to place for struggling individuals and their loved ones as well as professionals like you.

• Provide accurate, trustworthy information that is easy to understand, fact-checked, and never pop-psychology-based.

• Promote hope and positivity by giving voice to those who want to share their stories.

• Make it easy and safe for clients and professionals to connect and communicate online.”

When I finished reading Dr. Bilotti’s letter I knew I needed to learn more. I reached out to him and asked if he would be interested in doing an interview for my blog. He agreed and you can watch the full interview here.

After talking to him in person, I realized he is for real. He’s a man on a mission and the mission is one that is near and dear to my heart and soul. If you’re a  health care provider, you will find Dr. Bilotti to be a kindred spirit who is in the business of helping other health care providers like yourself. If you are a seeker of health care and want to get the latest, most accurate, information that can help you make good decisions about your health, you will also find a caring community at Webshrink. If you are a “two-hatter” like me, you will find much that will interest and excite you.

Being a health care provider I was interested in some of the things Webshrink is planning to offer us. Dr. Bilotti detailed a few new things planned for later this year:

• HIPAA-compliant telehealth platform designed for mental health.

• A complete, searchable medication database.

• Secure, private messaging between therapists and clients.

• Online scheduling.

• More resources and clinical tools for therapists.

I decided to join and hope you’ll consider joining as well. Here are the main reasons I think Webshrink is a community worth joining:

• I believe in the mission to create a community of mental health Seekers and Providers.

• I believe in the man behind the mission, Dr. Ed. Bilotti.

• The cost is extremely reasonable: $4/month, $40/year, $100/Lifetime (and you get a free month to try it out. Can’t beat that).

• Plus, Dr. Bilotti is offering all providers a $25 gift certificate to Amazon if you join by March 30, 2024. (He told me he wants to encourage people to buy one of my books, but you can spend it anyway you want.)

If you want to get more information and consider joining this worthwhile movement you can learn about listing your practice here.

And if you want to see what a listing looks like you can check out my own at https://tinyurl.com/WebshrinkDrJed.

Plus, if you liked this article and would like to get a free E-Copy of my latest book Long Live Men! The Moonshot Mission to Heal Men, Close the Lifespan Gap, and Offer Hope to Humanity, send an email to: Jed@MenAlive.com and put “Webshrink book offer” in the subject line. It is my 17^th book and some say, it’s my best.

The post The Future of Mental Health: Bringing Together Health Seekers and Providers appeared first on MenAlive.

Part 1

I have been a health care professional for more than fifty years. During that time I have risen in my profession and helped thousands of men and women to live fully, love deeply, and make a positive difference in the world. I have also been stressed, depressed, and suicidal during much of my professional life. I’m  not alone. According to Mark Olfson, MD, MPH, professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University,

“Health care workers compared with non-healthcare workers have greater risks for mental health problems and long-term work absences due to mental disorders, and are at increased risk of suicide, compared with workers in other fields.”

            It took me a long time to recognize and accept my own problems and to get the help I needed. Like many health professionals I thought I could save the world. I put the needs of my clients ahead of my own and suffered as a result. I also believed that most health problems were gender neutral, with the same treatment applicable for males and females.

            That changed for me when our son went into treatment for his alcohol and drug problems. My wife and I were invited to come visit him during family week. As part of the education we received about addictions and the underlying causes, all the family members were given a standard depression questionnaire. Most experts agreed that people who suffered from addictions, as well as family members, often suffered from depression.

            My wife, Carlin, scored high on the depression scale (indicating that she likely had some degree of depression). I scored low, indicating that I didn’t. When we returned home she saw a doctor, received a more in-depth examination, which verified the findings. She started on medications and counseling and things improved greatly in her life as well as mine.

            Two months into her own therapy she suggested that I might also be suffering from depression. “I don’t think so,” I told her. “Remember, you are the one that scored high on the test. I scored low.”

            “Maybe so,” she told me. “But tests don’t always tell the whole story. I still think you could use some help.”

            I disagreed and got busy doing my work seeing clients, but my stress and irritability increased. Things got worse between us and I finally agreed to see someone, hoping it would put her mind at ease. Instead the therapist agreed with her, though my symptoms were different than hers, my depression was real, I was told. 

Carlin shared some of her frustrations with the therapist.

“Jed has rapid mood changes. He’s angry, accusing, argumentative and blaming one moment. The next he’s buying me flowers, cards, and love notes. He can be happy and the life of the party one moment, then become irritable, anxious, and depressed the next minute.”

            I spent seven years in treatment which included medications, in addition to psychotherapy. Things began to improve and many lifelong issues that I had avoided were dealt with and resolved. I wrote two books about what I learned, The Irritable Male Syndrome: Understanding and Managing the 4 Key Causes of Depression and Aggression and Mr. Mean: Saving Your Relationships from The Irritable Male Syndrome.

            In the process, I heightened my awareness about differences between men and women and why understanding gender different are important for clinicians and clients. According to Marianne J. Legato, MD, Founder of the Partnership for Gender Specific Medicine,

“Until now, we’ve acted as though men and women were essentially identical except for the differences in their reproductive function. In fact, information we’ve been gathering over the past ten years tells us that this is anything but true, and that everywhere we look, the two sexes are startingly and unexpectedly different not only in their normal function but in the ways they experience illness.”

            I delved more deeply into the science of gender-specific medicine and learned that new information on genetic differences between males and females were also important to our understanding. David C. Page, M.D., is professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and director of the Whitehead Institute, where he has a laboratory devoted to the study of the Y-chromosome.

            “There are ten trillion cells in the human body and every one of them is sex specific,”

says Dr. Page.

“We’ve had a unisex vision of the human genome, but men and women are not equal in our genome and men and women are not equal in the face of disease. A great deal of the research going on today which seeks to understand the causes and treatments for disease is failing to account for this most fundamental difference between men and women. The study of disease is flawed.”

            Pamela Wible, M.D., is a family physician, author, and expert in physician suicide prevention. In her book, Physician Suicide Letters Answered, she says,

“I’ve been a doctor for twenty years. I’ve not lost a single patient to suicide. I’ve lost only colleagues, friends, lovers–ALL male physicians–to suicide. Why?”

Males are not the only ones who die by suicide, but we are much more likely to die. Dr. Wible details the reasons that so many doctors and other healthcare professionals die by suicide including the following:

• Our greatest joy is the relationship with our patients.
• Doctoring is more than a job; it’s a calling, an identity.
• With so much need, we often put the needs of others ahead of our own.
• Assembly-line medicine undermines the patient-physician relationship.
• Most practitioners are burned out, overworked, or exhausted.
• Workaholics are admired in medicine and other healthcare professions.
• Many of us function in survival mode and our personal and family lives suffer.
• We’re not supposed to make mistakes.
• Caring for sick people can make us sick if we don’t take care of ourselves.
• Seeing too much pain and not enough joy is unhealthy.
• The reductionist medical model is dehumanizing for patients and providers.
• We are bullied by insurance companies, employers, and patients.
• Patients and the public see us as superhuman and we often forget that we have problems just like the people we treat.
• We don’t take very good care of themselves or each other.
• We don’t acknowledge the reality that we are at high risk of overwork, overwhelm, breakdown, and self-harm.

            There are many problems with our healthcare system. Stephen C. Schimpff, M.D, is one of the world’s foremost experts on health care. He says,

“The nation leads the world in spending for medical care but lags in quality because it lacks a health care system.“

Instead, he says, the United States has a “sick care” system. It is one of the reasons that many doctors and other health professionals are leaving the field, just at a time when they are needed the most.

            More than 145,200 clinicians exited the healthcare workforce in 2021 and 2022 with physicians—in particular internal medicine and family practice doctors—at the head of the line, according to a newly updated industry report from Definitive Healthcare. Beyond the physician population, 2021 and 2022 also had about 34,800 nurse practitioners, 15,300 physical therapists, 13,700 physician assistants and 10,000 licensed clinical social workers leave the workforce.

We need more male health care professionals and we need more men who are trained in understanding gender-specific medicine and health care. I will be offering a series of courses later this year to address these needs. In a recent article “Calling All Men: Are You Ready to Get Healthy in Body, Mind, and Spirit in 2024?,” I summarize the main topics.  

If you’re interested in learning more, drop me an email to Jed@Menalive.com. Put “Men’s Courses” in the subject line.

To read more articles like these, please consider subscribing to my free newsletter.

In Part 2 of this series I will continue to explore these issues.

The post Healer Heal Thyself: Why Health Care Professionals Are Becoming Stressed, Depressed, and Suicidal appeared first on MenAlive.

Margaret J. Wheatley is one of my heroes. At a time when many people are afraid of the truth, she tells it like it is. At a time when many people want to run away and hide, she invites us to step into our true warrior spirit in the tradition of Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa. In my book, The Warrior’s Journey Home: Healing Men, Healing the Planet, I quoted Trungpa:

            “Warriorship here does not refer to making war on others. Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution. Here the word ‘warrior’ is taken from the Tibetan pawo which literally means ‘one who is brave.’ Warriorship in this context is the tradition of human bravery, or the tradition of fearlessness. Warriorship is not being afraid of who you are.”

            In her powerful and hopeful book, Who Do We Choose to Be? Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, and Restoring Sanity Wheatley says,

“My aspiration is for you to see clearly so that you may act wisely. If we don’t know where we are, if we don’t know what to prepare for, then any path we choose will keep us wandering in the wilderness, increasingly desperate, increasingly lost.”

            I received my own awakening to the warrior spirit in 1993 at a Men’s Leaders’ Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana, sponsored by Wingspan Magazine. As part of the conference offerings we were invited to participate in a traditional Native American sweat lodge ceremony. In the 4^th round when things got so hot in the lodge that many people had to get out, I was transported into a vision where I saw the sinking of the Ship of Civilization and the launching of Lifeboats for freedom.  

            Most of those on the ship wouldn’t believe the ship could sink, denied the truth, and went under. A few people, who believed the truth of their senses rather than the propaganda of the ship captain, escaped in lifeboats, banded together, and created a new, more sustainable, world.

            Over the last thirty years this vision has guided my life. Here are a few of the things I’ve learned:

• “Civilization” is a misnomer. Its proper name is the “Dominator culture.”

            As long as we buy the myth that “civilization” is the best humans can aspire to achieve, we are doomed to go down with the ship. In The Chalice & the Blade: Our History Our Future first published in 1987, internationally acclaimed scholar and futurist, Riane Eisler first introduced us to our long, ancient heritage as a Partnership Culture and our more recent Dominator Culture, which has come to be called “Civilization.” In her book, Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future, written with peace activist Douglas P. Fry, they offer real guidance for creating a world based on partnership.

• There is a better world, beyond civilization.

            When I was given the book Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn,I got a clear sense of the two worlds that are competing for our attention: A world where hierarchy and dominance rule (Quinn calls it the world of the Takers) and a world where equality and connection rule (Quinn calls it the world of the Leavers). In his book, Beyond Civilization: Humanity’s Next Great Adventure, he asks, “What does saving the world mean?”

            Quinn goes on to say,

“Saving the world can only mean one thing: saving the world as a human habitat. Accomplishing this will mean (must mean) saving the world as a habitat for as many other species as possible. We can only save the world as a human habitat if we stop our catastrophic onslaught on the community of life, for we depend on that community for our very lives.”

• Humans are not doing a very good job becoming sustaining members in the community of life on Earth.

            Thomas Berry was a priest, a “geologian,” and a historian of religions. He spoke eloquently about our connection to the Earth and the consequences of our failure to remember who we are.

“We never knew enough. Nor were we sufficiently intimate with all our cousins in the great family of the earth. Nor could we listen to the various creatures of the earth, each telling its own story. The time has now come, however, when we will listen or we will die.”

• The truth is that too many of us haven’t listened and too many of us will die. So what are we to do?

If the history of the many civilizations that have come to dominate the Earth over the last 6,000 years is a guide, most people will choose to “eat, drink, and be merry” and go down with the Ship. A few of us will be called to a different future. In her book, Who Do We Choose to Be? Margaret Wheatley reminds us that

“The Warriors arise when the people need protection.”

The last chapter of Who Do We Choose to Be? is titled: “Warriors For The Human Spirit: It’s Just Our Turn to Serve.” She says,

“As Warriors for the Human Spirit, our only weapons are compassion and insight. We refrain from using aggression and fear to accomplish results. We choose to stand apart from the current destructive dynamics and create good human societies wherever we can, Islands of Sanity. We know we are only a small minority, the few people who answer the call and prepare themselves to persevere and protect what is most valuable, what must not be lost.”

• The hope for those committed to a meaningful future is to join the movement to restore sanity.

I recently did an interview with Margaret Wheatly about her new book, Restoring Sanity: Practices to Awaken Generosity, Creativity & Kindness in Ourselves and Our Organizations. You can watch it here. 

“Why wouldn’t I dedicate a book focused on awakening the human spirit to all of us, eight billion spirits and counting,”

says Wheatley. So I do.

She begins the book with a quote by Marvin Weisbord, author, consultant, and Organizational Development elder. “I used to ask, ‘What’s wrong? How can I fix it?’ Then I realized the right question was: ‘What’s possible and who cares?’”

This is a very powerful truth. Many of us who have been working to make the world a better place have broken our minds, hearts, and souls trying to fix what is unfixable. With wisdom (and age—I turned 80 last year) some of us have concluded that there are some things that humans have done in our woundedness and ignorance that cannot be fixed.  

Many of the changes that we have brought about, including the destabilization of the climate, are not reversible. We will have to live with the consequences. But that does not mean there is nothing we can do. Here’s what Meg says to those who are ready to hear the truth and feel called to do something constructive:

“The perfect storm is here, created by the coalescence of climate and human-created catastrophes, insatiable greed, fear-based self-protection, escalating aggression and conflict, indifference for the well-being of others, and continuing uncertainty.”

She goes on to say,

“As leaders dedicated to serving the causes and people we treasure, confronted by this unrelenting tsunami, what are we to do? My answer to this is also stated with full confidence: We need to restore sanity by awakening the human spirit. We can only achieve this if we undertake the most challenging and meaningful work of our leader lives: creating Islands of Sanity.”

In the rest of the book, you will learn the practices necessary to join us in becoming Warriors for the Human Spirit. As my long-time friend and colleague, Clarissa Pinkola Estes says,

For those inspired by the call to come together, Margaret Wheatley explains,

“An Island of Sanity is a gift of possibility and refuge created by people’s commitment to form healthy community to do meaningful work. It requires sane leaders with unshakable faith in people’s innate generosity, creativity, and kindness.”

If you’d like more information about Margaret Wheatley’s books, warrior training, and current thinking you can contact her at MargaretWheatley.com.

If you would like to learn more about my own books, training programs, and current thinking, you can contact me at MenAlive.com.  

The post Warriors For the Human Spirit: Finding Your Path of Contribution in a World Out of Balance appeared first on MenAlive.

Part 2

            In Part 1 of this series I introduced you to the work of Robert Waldinger, MD and Marc Schultz, PhD wo are co-directors of the iconic, 86-year-old Harvard Study of Adult Development. In their book, The Good Life: Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, they offer expert guidance on how to live a fully healthy life, to love deeply, and find your passion and purpose in midlife and beyond. I also shared the work of Chip Conley, Founder of the Modern Elder Academy, and what we can learn from his new book, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better With Age.

            In Part 2 I want to introduce you to the three areas where it is most important to apply this wisdom—In our love lives, in our work lives, and our inner lives. In his book, The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship, David Whyte says,

“Human beings are creatures of belonging, though they may come to that sense of belonging only through long periods of exile and loneliness.”

            Most of us have experienced the feelings of exile and loneliness that Whyte describes. I found Whyte’s description of the three marriages to be very helpful.

“This sense of belonging or not belonging” says Whyte, “is lived out by most people through three principal dynamics:

• “First, through relationship to other people and other living things (particularly and very personally, to one other living, breathing person in relationship or marriage).”

• “Second, through work. Work is not only necessity; good work like a good marriage needs dedication to something larger than our own detailed, everyday needs.

• “Third, perhaps the most difficult marriage of all beneath the two visible, all-too-public marriages of work and relationship—is the internal and often secret marriage to that tricky movable frontier of ourselves.

“These are the three marriages of Work, Self, and Others.”

Like many men, I have had a difficult time achieving success balancing all three “marriages.” I have been most successful in my work life, in some part by writing books about what I learned working through my failures in my love life and my search for my lost self. My first book, Inside Out: Becoming My Own Man detailed my struggles figuring out who I am. The second, book, Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places detailed the confusion I had between “real lasting love” and “sex and love addiction.”  The other fifteen books and twelve hundred articles are my continuing journey to learn about, and share, what I’ve learned about integrating all three. Clearly, this is a life-long journey.

One of the primary lessons is that becoming a success in one marriage can’t be automatically transferred to the others. For a long time, I thought if I could become a successful psychotherapist and made a lot of money, I could attract the woman of my dreams and live happily ever after. It didn’t work as you’ll learn if you visit my website and see my introductory video “Confessions of a Twice-Divorced Marriage Counselor.”

Whyte shares a powerful truth in his book.

“Each of these marriages is, at its heart, nonnegotiable; that we should give up the attempt to balance one marriage against another, of, for instance taking away from work to give more time to a partner, or vice versa, and start thinking of each marriage conversing with, questioning or emboldening the other two.”

I learned an important lesson about how these three marriages can be developed an integrated from a Native American basket weaver. She described our life as a basket woven from many different strands, each essential for a strong container. Each part of our life is one strand in this basket. In this case think of each of the three marriages as a strand, each equally important for making a beautiful life basket.

She explained to me that it is impossible to weave multiple strands at the same time; we need to attend to the strand that requires our attention without losing awareness of the others. Every strand will get our attention—just not all at the same time.

Rather than feeling like we are trying to juggle multiple balls of marriage responsibilities and work tasks, while trying to take care of our own needs, and ultimately failing, we can give 100% of our attention to our work when we’re working. When its time for the strand of marriage, we give our full attention to that strand, and later the strand of self. This simple image has helped me relax and flow into the dance of life.

Another thing I came to understand from Whyte is the importance of spending quality time alone, preferably in nature, in order to pursue the illusive lover that is my inner self. In my early life I was always busy pursuing women and success at work so I could attract or hold on to the woman who was the object of my current pursuit. And I was always trying to achieve more power and prestige so that I could prove that I was a man of substance rather than an invisible man I was afraid I really was.

After discussing the importance of doing good work and finding a partner in life, he goes on to discuss the third marriage. “The Tree Marriages,” says Whyte,

“looks at that other equally strange human need, to be left completely and utterly alone, trawling the deep riches of an inner peace and quiet, where the self can actually seem lithe, movable, limitless and inviolate, invulnerable to those invisible wounds delivered by partners and spouses, unharassed by commitment, inured to the clamor of children and untouched by the endless nature of our meetings.”

Only a poet like Whyte could capture the many ways I had become addicted to love and work. Like many men I know, it took losing a marriage or two and being fired from a job or two, to finally take time off to find the inner lover I had abandoned so long ago. For me, I began to get to know my true self on a trip to Alaska when I was thirty-six following the end of my first marriage and a second trip to Alaska with my men’s group when I was fifty-six.

I had to get away from work and women in order find the me I was afraid to see and come to terms with the father wound that I experienced when my mid-life father took an overdose of sleeping pills when I was five years old. Though he didn’t die, our lives were never the same.

I came to understand that my drive to achieve success at work and find the perfect marriage partner was driven, in part, by unhealed trauma from childhood. The Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Studies have demonstrated that our early experiences can have a major impact on our adult health and wellbeing. Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood. For example:

• Experiencing violence, abuse, or neglect.
• Living in a home where someone has substance abuse or mental health problems.
• Witnessing violence in the home or community.
• Having a parent who is absent physically or emotionally.

One of the most common, and harmful ACEs, is growing up with an absent father. Psychologist James Hollis says,

“A father may be physically present, but absent in spirit. His absence may be literal through death, divorce or dysfunction, but more often it is a symbolic absence through silence and the inability to transmit what he also may not have learned.”

Roland Warren, former President of National Fatherhood Initiative, says,

“Kids have a hole in their soul in the shape of their dad. And if a father is unwilling or unable to fill that role, it can leave a wound that is not easily healed.”

That was certainly the truth for me. The wound definitely impacted my relationships, my sense of myself, and my work life.

Though I achieved great outward success at work, it felt more addictive than free. My mantra was “too much is not enough.” I always felt I had something to prove in all aspects of my life. Healing the father wound was crucial to the integration of all three of my marriages—to work, to love, and to myself.

Many people who have suffered from Adverse Childhood Experiences and early trauma feel their lives will be forever limited and they will never be truly happy. The good news from the Harvard results, as well as other long-term studies, shows that healing can happen regardless of the difficult early lives. It helps when we can acknowledge our wounds and talk about our experiences rather than trying to forget they ever happened.

In The Good Life, Drs. Waldinger and Schulz conclude, “As adults, the Harvard Study participants who were able to acknowledge challenges and talk about them more openly seemed to have a similar ability to elicit support from others. Being open and clear about one’s experiences offers an opportunity for another person to be helpful.”

Too often, men try to hide their wounds so they can appear strong. We’re terrified of appearing weak and vulnerable. Yet, I’ve found that our vulnerability is our superpower. My wife, Carlin, has often told me that my willingness to be vulnerable is what she most loves and admires about me. Her love has gone a long way to helping me heal from my early losses. She has also said that one of the main reasons we have had a successful forty-four-year marriage is because I have been in a men’s group for forty-five years.

Among the most important findings from the Harvard Studies were that regardless of our early wounds, there were two vitally important things that allowed men to find true happiness and joy: “Meeting a caring friend and marrying an accepting spouse.” Nurturing our friendships and our intimate partnerships takes time and effort, but there is nothing that is more important.

If you would like to read more articles like these, I invite you to subscribe to my free, weekly, newsletter, which you can do here: https://menalive.com/email-newsletter/.

The post The One Thing Midlife Men Must Do to Have a Great Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness appeared first on MenAlive.

I will admit it. I’m in love. I would even go so far as to say I’m more in love now than when we first fell in love 44 years ago. My wife, Carlin, and I have been together since 1980. It was the third marriage for each of us. Yes, sometimes, the third time is the charm. But getting to stage five has been a journey which we are still on. I wrote about it in an article, “The 5 Stages of Love and Why Too Many Stop at Stage 3.”

            We all want real, lasting love, whether we are in our 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, or beyond. Yet too many marriages fall apart and most people don’t know why. They mistakenly believe that they have chosen the wrong partner. After going through the grieving process, they start looking again. But after more than forty years as a marriage and family counselor I have found that most people are looking for love in all the wrong places. They don’t understand that Stage 3 is not the end, but the real beginning for achieving real, lasting love:

            Stage 1: Falling In Love

            Stage 2: Becoming a Couple

            Stage 3: Disillusionment

            Stage 4: Creating Real, Lasting Love

            Stage 5: Using the Power of Two to Change the World

            When people think about what needs to change in the world, we often hear clichés like “the world needs more love.” But what does it mean to actually change the world for the better and how can love deal with global climate change, the destruction of our ecosystem, and our political gridlock that keeps us stuck in endless conflicts?

            Although we can go through the five stages of love at any age, we usually are not able to fully engage stage 5 until reach mid-life. When we get to mid-life and beyond, we all have a desire to make a difference in the world. We usually think of this as our “calling” in life. At a time when we must face the reality that we must change our lives to live sustainably on the planet, many of us feel called upon to address these issues. My calling has been to help men and women find real, lasting love so that together we can save humanity. My calling goes beyond my own personal joy in creating my relationship with Carlin. I want to make a difference in the world. This is true of Carlin as well.       

             The Power to Two enables us to do together what we could never do alone. My calling puts me more in the public arena world-wide, but I couldn’t do it without Carlin’s backing and support. Her calling is to make a difference in with our family, friends, and community. I’m there for her and my support allows her to make her own difference in the world.

            Joshua Wolf Shenk begins his book, Powers of Two: How Relationships Drive Creativity with this quote by playwright Tony Kushner,

“The smallest indivisible human unit is two people, not one; one is a fiction.”

Shenk begins the book with our commonly held belief about the power of one.

“For centuries, the myth of the lone genius has towered over us like a colossus.”

He goes on to look more deeply at the power of two. He goes on to say,

“the dyad is the most fluid and flexible of relationships. Two people can basically make their own society as on the go. When even one more person is added to the mix, the situation becomes more stable, but this stability may stifle creativity, as roles and power positions harden. Three legs make a table stand in place. Two legs are made for walking or running for jumping or falling.”

            You might ask yourselves what do you see as your calling in life? What do you feel called upon to do, that would make the world a little better place? I believe that two people who are experiencing real, lasting love can commit themselves to sharing that love with the world.  Think what the world would be like if more and more of us were engaged in expressing real, lasting love.

            One important lesson the Coronavirus pandemic has taught me is that we are all connected. What impacts each of us can influence all of us. It also reminds me that humans are out of balance with the community of life on Earth. It was not an accident that the virus spread from animals to humans. Humans continue to consume more and more of the Earth’s resources and to invade habit of other animal species.

            In my book, The Enlightened Marriage: The 5 Transformative Stages of Relationship and Why The Best is Still To Come, I guide people through the 5 Stages of Love. In the final chapter, “You Two Can Change the World: If Not You, Who? If Not Now, When?” I say that the environmental changes we are seeing—everything from Covid-19 to extreme climate change—remind me of the film Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance, a 1982 documentary directed by Godfrey Reggio with music composed by Philip Glass. There was no dialogue in the film, just images and hauntingly beautiful music. According to Hopi Dictionary the word koyaanisqatsi (Hopi pronunciation: kojɑːnisˈkɑtsi) is defined as “life of moral corruption and turmoil” or “life out of balance.”

            In her book, The Watchman’s Rattle: A Radical New Theory of Collapse, Rebecca Costa offers an in-depth understanding of the underlying causes of this imbalance. She recognizes the complexity is making it difficult for humans to solve the problems we have created in the world.

            Clearly, if human beings are going to survive as a species, we must heal our connection to the earth. We must also heal our connection to ourselves and each other.  I believe that couples are being called to this larger purpose. As our love expands outward we want to work together to help save our children, grandchildren, and all future generations.

             Let me be clear, I’m not suggesting that every couple has to find a big issue that they tackle together. I’m not even suggesting that there is a single issue that both members of the couple will take on together. I am saying that as we get into our 40s, 50s, and 60s, we begin to feel called to address larger issues in the world. These issues may be an extension of our work, either paid or volunteer, or they may be something that has been in the background of our lives and is now coming to the fore.

            One person may take the lead on an issue and the other person may remain more in the background providing support. We may be the leader on one issue and the support person on another. Or there may be an issue that both members of the partnership want to address. We may each bring our unique perspective and skills to the problem.

            My wife, Carlin, and I continue to find ways to heal ourselves, heal our relationships, and extend the healing out into the world. If you are in a relationship now, think of how the five stages of love may guide you and what you might want to engage as you reach Stage 5, Using the Power of Two to do your part to change the world for the better.

            I look forward to hearing from you. Drop me a note at Jed@MenAlive.com (be sure to respond to my spamarrest filter when writing for the first time) or come visit me at www.MenAlive.com.

The post The 5th Stage of Love: How the Power of Two Can Change the World appeared first on MenAlive.