Once in a while, during a typical hectic day in our household, my wife will turn to me wearing a pretend-astonished smile and say: “Chris, did you know that we have three boys?” Although it seems like she’s just playfully stating the obvious, I hear her words like the ringing of a generations-old mission bell, a reminder of what’s most important to me. Each time, I’m struck by the responsibility of raising our boys in an era when masculinity, in the way that it’s long been defined, is being called to expand.
Growing up, I was taught that traditional male attributes are things like toughness, emotional reserve, strength, power, and staunch individualism. This image of a “traditional man” feeds into once-clear-cut roles like winner and provider. Edward M. Adams and Ed Frauenheim suggest that this version of masculinity is confined: both limited and limiting. In their 2020 book, Reinventing Masculinity, Adams and Frauenheim write, “Confined masculinity focuses more on a man’s sense of separateness rather than his sense of belonging. For example, many believe they should keep their emotions to themselves, be self-sufficient and show no vulnerability.” By accepting that these qualities are somehow inherent to masculinity, and essential for success as defined by our cultural power structures, we create the space for a society that frequently and casually pardons even abusive behaviors from men. “The phrase ‘boys will be boys’ is designed to make us think that boys are naturally more aggressive and competitive and less emotional, empathic, or in need of close same-sex friendships than girls,” says Niobe Way, professor of developmental psychology and the founder of the Project for the Advancement of Our Common Humanity at New York University. She notes that frequently used phrases like “boys will be boys” or “no homo” (a phrase frequently used by straight men to emphasize their sexual orientation when making what might seem like emotional or vulnerable comments) perpetuate the idea that the human need for close, caring relationships have a sex (female) and a sexuality (gay), and thus are discouraged for those who are neither. “The problem is not the nature of boys, but the culture in which they, and we, live,” Way says.
I was conditioned to keep quiet about my inner strife. And I’m not alone.
The patterns of the confined-masculine stereotype have caused me to reject parts of myself—of my own vulnerability—inflicting deep wounds. I was conditioned to keep quiet about my inner strife. And I’m not alone. Research from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) found that about six million American men suffer from depression every year. And they’ve been documenting how the traditional male role, “which restricts emotional expression and encourages a preoccupation with success, power, and competition,” is associated with negative physical and psychological consequences, such as depression, anxiety, and relationship problems. Men are less likely to receive treatment for mental illness, and in the US, men are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide than women. This disconnection from our emotional lives can be isolating. It contributes to men having a higher rate of alcohol abuse—and being about two times more likely to misuse other drugs—than women. And it’s a sobering metaphor for how confined masculinity plays out that men represent 93% of the people in prison.
Ashanti Branch, founder of The Ever Forward Club, says, “The problem is either that a high percentage of men are bad—or it’s that the things we’re teaching our boys become the reasons why, once they grow up, they can’t live among the free.” Branch’s Million Mask Movement encourages young men to embrace who they are, and let people see more than the “mask” they believe is safe to show the world. It has served me (and I believe it would serve all of us) to find an expansive understanding of masculinity, by first grieving the ways in which we’ve been harmed by confined masculinity.
Freeing Ourselves Through Mindfulness
Bringing healing to masculinity is not a men-only project, but I believe it can be led by men willing to engage in the process with a sense of hope, generativity, and “beginner’s mind”—an attitude of openness, willingness, and nonjudgment that is nurtured through meditation and mindfulness practices. For me, this awareness dawned 20 years ago when I was given mindfulness teacher Thich Nhat Hanh’s book The Miracle of Mindfulness as a gift. In the first chapter, he tells a story about a father named Allen, who is able to reframe his loss of personal time (as a result of having a family) through cultivating a beginner’s mind. Allen learns to shift from a poverty mindset, where self-reliance and separateness prevail, to a mindset of abundance, collaboration, and connectedness. This story opened me to new ways of seeing my embodiment of masculinity: I remember noticing that the metaphorical “man cave” I inhabited suddenly seemed brighter, more spacious, and more nuanced with color. I no longer felt like an abandoned prisoner in that cave. Instead, I could see myself as an empowered creator of my own life, within a community of care.
Soon after receiving this book, I met my best friend, Rob. It didn’t take long for his extraordinary style of putting his heart first to dismantle the “tough man” stereotype I had built my life around. Since our early days of friendship, Rob’s ended every one of our times together by saying “I love you.” He not only says it, he means it, and he’s backed it up with years of steadfast loyalty to our friendship. His kindness and brave vulnerability allowed me to see (and emerge from) that man cave I had confined myself to.
Perhaps the most liberating moment of my friendship with Rob came when we were both pursuing our master’s degrees in transpersonal psychology. During a class, Rob and I (already having forged a strong friendship) volunteered to offer a therapeutic “working” to the class—a teaching