Is society comfortable with having real mental health conversations? While mental health buzzwords have become more mainstream, most people are still stigmatized for their mental health experiences. This is especially true for men; did you know that the CDC found that men have the highest suicide rate in the US?
Examining the ways that society allows the emotional neglect of boys and perpetuates this stigma is necessary to help prevent worse mental health outcomes for men. If you’re looking to better care for your mental health, here are some mindful practices specifically for men to try in honor of Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month.
Tackle Childhood Triggers
Addressing childhood traumas should be handled with care and compassion for yourself. The first step is awareness; you should acknowledge the harmful ways your parents might have shown up and reimagine how you would reparent yourself. Your inner child must be heard and held, because ignoring the inner child through suppressed trauma can lead anyone to be socially stunted.
Healing the inner child allows you to tap into your fullest potential and show up as the best version of yourself. Some mindful ways to tap into the inner child include self-reflecting through meditation, journaling, and releasing toxic family practices.
Work On Expressing Emotions
We live in a society where men are conditioned from childhood to be disconnected from their emotions. A Psychology Today article reveals that an important reason men struggle with their emotions is due to discouraged emotional fluency as they grow older. This means everyone is born with similar emotional capacity but men are taught to conform to typical standards of masculinity.
When the emotions men are allowed to express are limited to anger and rage, it becomes easy to confuse masculinity with aggression. However, it is important to note that masculinity itself is not toxic! How society defines masculinity is toxic. Therefore, it is helpful to exercise vulnerability with yourself. Honoring your emotions is a powerful practice that can increase emotional awareness.
Embrace Feminine Energy
The feminine deals with the internal state and how that impacts the external world. While masculine energy is about external action, feminine energy deals with intuition and receptivity. Men choosing to connect with their intuition is a great practice that can increase emotional intelligence.
Intuition is nothing more than listening to your true inner voice. You must form an intentional relationship with yourself to recognize your intuition. You can self-reflect by unlearning conditioned beliefs which leads to a recognition of the true inner voice. Once the intuition is recognized, you can unlock your feminine potential and learn that your internal state equally impacts your external state. Balancing both energies is crucial to improving your mental health.
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Explore Your Sexuality
Just like emotional expression, sexual exploration is frowned upon for men. As a result, it’s important to redefine what healthy sexuality looks like. Society views domination and control as the acceptable form of sexual expression for men, and anything outside of straight sexual expression is highly frowned upon. According to the Bisexual Resource Center, bisexual men often experience emasculation when they share their sexuality with others. This only leads to further suppression of their sexual desires. Therefore, men have to reclaim their sexuality by ensuring it is rooted in autonomy. This means rejecting the control or suppression of a person’s sexual autonomy, including theirs!
This mindful practice will allow you to tap into your sensuality and be comfortable in your skin. Once you feel comfortable, you’ll be more open to exploring your sexual desires without shame.
Practice Self-Love
Radical self-love is the ultimate mindful practice that men should pursue in order to care for their mental health. This entails radical self-acceptance of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
All the prior practices are great examples of self-love in action. As previously mentioned, you should lean into your feminine energy since it is tied to your intuition. Intuitive discernment will allow you to recognize your true inner voice as opposed to your conditioned voice. Once discernment is at play, you will be able to recognize triggers and be in control of your emotions. Most importantly, you will have a newfound sense of what healthy love means.
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