The Rock and the Stone

Coach: Your family is looking to you to be their rock.

Client: But I’m not made of stone.

This is the experience of many men I talk to. They are called to be strong and resilient for their families or their peers. But when they need support themselves, they don’t know where to find it. It’s one of the earliest messages we are taught as children and one of the hardest for us to understand.

“Man up!” “Don’t be a pussy!” are phrases that break down our self confidence in our early life. As we grow up, we are often ridiculed for doing “girlie” things like playing with dolls or joining a dance class. This only gets worse if we want to participate in “feminine” sports like cheerleading or volleyball. Once we start dating, we find that girls don’t want to date “soft” or “sensitive” guys. As adults, these messages are confirmed once again with phrases like “man of the house” or “who wears the pants?”

At the same time, we are taught that being mean, violent, or aggressive is abusive and harmful. We are told to be kind and understanding. We hear voices telling us to let our feelings out, to be sensitive to the needs of others. We see that helping someone else gains us praise. We hear of “narcissists” and “abusers” who only take and never give back.

We want to connect, share, help, and be helped. We want to care for someone and have someone care for us. We want to have a life filled with the joy and happiness we know comes from loving someone and being loved by others.

To many of us, these messages conflict. How can I “man up!” and be kind? How does a guy “don’t be a pussy!” and be understanding? In our young and developing minds, “soft” or “sensitive” is the solution to being a “narcissist” or “abuser.” Yet soft, sensitive guys don’t get dates, so some of us become “narcissists” and “abusers”. As adults, husbands and fathers aren’t taught how to “wear the pants” and be caring and loving at the same time.

What ends up happening for most of the guys I talk to is that they pick one side or the other. They choose to be sensitive and caring, hoping that someone will see the value in being treated like a princess. Or they choose to “Man up” and set down the rules, therefore offering a level of safety the sensitive guys can’t offer. But there is a happy middle ground whereby we can be protecting and kind, loving and strong. The difference is being the rock without becoming the stone.

My Experience

I grew up, like most young boys, being told alternately to be strong and to be considerate. I was never taught what those identities looked like. I believe that was because the people teaching me didn’t know either. I and others like me leaned toward the sensitive side while other guys I knew leaned toward the protecting side. People rarely noticed me and if they did, it was to make fun of me in some cruel way. The protectors, on the other hand, did get noticed – as aggressive. Neither of us had much opportunity to have a girlfriend. Me because they didn’t think I was “man enough” and them because they were “abusive.” Eventually many of us learned how to become more balanced, but that took a lot of failed attempts. Many other guys still haven’t figured that out.

I can remember an ex calling me a whimp and spineless after she got mad at me for not going to her defence when someone called her names in the mall one day. I can remember another one telling me to stop being so mushy. I remember an ex loving my romantic poetry one moment and demanding I “take charge” in the bedroom the next.

The confusion I felt from these mixed messages left me wondering what it means to be a real man. I couldn’t figure out when I was supposed to be strong and stand up for what I believed in and when I was supposed to be supportive and compassionate. I read book after book on men’s issues, addiction, and abuse, some of them Christian, some not. I asked friends and peers. I talked with classmates and co-workers. I attended men’s conferences and faith groups. I tried counselling and therapy. I even tried drugs, both the legal and not so legal kinds. I’ve tried to become an alcoholic so many times I’ve lost count. All these things did teach me many things, but none of them helped me clarify what it means to be a real man.

Then a few years ago, when I started writing about depression and my own journey with issues other men also deal with, I started helping other guys that are also finding this dichotomy confusing. In the conversations that ensued from this new point of view – of helping other guys – I started to see a pattern I didn’t recognise before. Many guys feel weak, some are called weak by the people in their lives, even by their spouses, while others believe they should be strong enough to handle whatever life throws at them. As I started examining this through the relationships they had and comparing that to the stories I’ve heard from so many women who’ve experienced abuse at the hands of a “strong” man, I saw the pattern. For a lot of guys, the choice comes down to two things: being seen as weak or being tagged as abusive. It became clear to me that the problem is we focus on avoiding the negative side of these characteristics instead of creating positive ones. We focus on being made or not made of stone instead of being the rock that others lean on for support.

If This Is You

Are you a guy trying to navigate the balance between strength and compassion, between sticking to your values and choosing to love someone? Do you struggle to know when to be strong, offering your strength in support of someone you care about, and when to show you softer side, asking for help to care for your own needs?

Most of us get it wrong sometimes as we traverse this life. We hold strong to our beliefs when later we believe compassion would have been more appropriate. We make sacrifices in our lives in order to help out a friend in need only to feel used afterward. We show “tough love” to someone who we believe has been enabled too long then see that we only made things worse for them. We go out of our way to do nice things for our spouses only to have them call us selfish or controlling.

We are often most abusive to ourselves. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to learn was to believe I have always done what I thought was best in the moment, even if the very next moment I wish I’d done something else. The great thing here is, once you start to realise you did the best you could in the moment with the information you had at the time, you can learn to forgive yourself for making mistakes or causing pain when you were trying to help.

The way to be the rock without becoming made of stone is to be strength for some and to look to others to be your strength. While a guy made need to lean on someone for something, they will likely have a strength that can support others. For example, I have a firm belief in the strength of manhood while many people believe that most men either misuse power or refuse to protect those seeking help. Guys call me up looking to lean on my belief in the strength of their manhood because they don’t feel strong as men. Yet many of those men who lean on me have strengths I rely on in areas I feel weaker than I want. This is the way of guys. We lean on each other when we need to and let them lean on us when they need to. In this way, each of us men can then be the rock in our families and hold them up when they feel like they’re falling, protecting them when they feel in danger, and allowing them to come to us with their needs instead of giving them something they haven’t asked for.

Waiting for them to ask us for help is important for two reasons. First, it frees us from being eternally vigilant. If we don’t have to constantly hold them up or protect them from danger, we can embrace, nurture, and grow in our own lives, preventing our own hearts from becoming like stone. Second, it frees them from being controlled or manipulated. Without our constant monitoring them for weakness or danger, they have the freedom to grow and experience life’s greatest joys. That is what being a man really is: being the rock they need when they want it, and having the strength to let them experience life their own way when they don’t, regardless of the consequences to you or to them.

If This Is Someone You Know

If you are in a relationship with a guy that isn’t embracing his manhood in the positive, life-giving way that he could, first make sure you and others around you are safe. Second, understand that he hasn’t figured out how to navigate the often-conflicting instructions us guys are given. Third, realise it isn’t your place to help him figure that out. In a relationship you have one job, to help the other person feel all the warm fuzzy feelings that go with feeling loved.

If he isn’t doing that for you it doesn’t change your job into making him see that. Your only job remains helping him to feel those feelings. If you can’t help him with that because of some damage that was done by you, by him, or by someone in the past, then it might be time to take care of yourself and let him find a way to take care of himself.

If he isn’t taking responsibility for his own life or helping you with the responsibilities in the relationship, your job isn’t to make him take responsibility. Your only job remains helping him to feel those warm fuzzy feelings that show him you love him. If you find you aren’t able to do that because you find yourself taking care of him or making decisions for him, it might be time to focus on taking care of your own needs and let him to find a way to be responsible for his own.

At that point you can continue (or resume) taking care of yourself and your kids of you have them. If, at some future point, you can resume helping him feel those warm fuzzy feelings then by all means do so, and there is no rulebook saying you have to do that. You are allowed to break the ties and go your separate ways. You are also allowed to wait for him to be available to receive your love again. The choice is ultimately yours.

If you have a hard time seeing his emotions or the emotion you see most often is anger, his heart might be becoming or already made of stone. If you don’t know what makes him happy, he may be hiding his joy behind a stone wall to protect it from harm. You’ll know the man you’re with is a rock, however, when you can rely on him to provide you with support and protection when you ask for it and share your life as you experience it your way when you want instead.

What It Means

Whether we chose the protective side or the sacrificial side when deciding what kind of man we want to be, we might misunderstand what being a man is actually all about. When we receive conflicting definitions of manhood, it can be hard to figure out what’s actually expected of us. This is the most common problem among the men who reach out to me for help. When I help them see that their families are looking to them to be the rock solid foundation that the family is built upon, the next thing we usually end up dealing with is how they get the support they want when they need it. The answer is simple, although it can be difficult to find.

Other guys can help hold us up when we feel the weight of our lives pulling us down. This is the reason we crave buddies, man caves, and traditionally masculine hobbies like sports and cars. With other guys to share our troubles with, we can have someone to lean on in the areas we want support in while supporting other guys in the areas we feel are our own strengths. We can be each other’s rocks and feel strength in companionship and community. This is what will enable us to be the rock in our families and relationships without hardening ourselves to the emotions that will inevitably come up.

Another way you can find help is through a professional that deals with men’s issues. Counsellors, therapists, and life coaches, all have different way that they can help guys out with these kinds of things. I’m a life coach who specialises in helping guys with these kinds of problems figure out how to manage their lives and show up for their families in a way that is both supportive and safe. Feel free to contact me so we can talk about how I may help.

What will you choose to be? The rock that your family can trust to hold them up and keep them safe while they go out into the world and experience new things, or the stone that holds himself apart from, and disconnected with, his family, forcing them to protect themselves from you and find other people to connect with. The choice, ultimately, is yours.

Boundaries vs Barriers

Boundaries – often discussed, yet one of the most misunderstood concepts of our modern society. Good boundaries can repair or enhance nearly any relationship, from co-workers to marriage. Bad or no boundaries can ruin any relationship, including the one with our self. Most therapists and counsellors will teach their clients something about boundaries as a part of the therapy they offer, but most people, even with the help of a therapist, don’t use them appropriately.

When used correctly, boundaries help us set limits on what we experience. They help us find our purpose. They let us discover our strengths. They protect us from our weaknesses. They help us define healthy for ourselves. They show us when we need to care for ourselves. They tell us when we have a little extra to give.

My Experience

When I first heard about boundaries, I thought I hit the jackpot! Here was to tool I needed to help me finally get my needs met. I could set up boundaries that would tell people exactly what they could do to help me. I could finally build up a toolbox of rules and guidelines that I could use to stop all the hurt I felt and let me take control of my life.

It didn’t take me long to figure out the MAJOR flaw in my plan. Nobody listened to my boundaries. Oh, my wife heard what I was saying and made a set of boundaries of her own, many of which were counter to mine. My boss and co-workers loved the idea that I was setting up boundaries, but they completely ignored them.

I returned to my comfortable routine of videos games and depression while I brooded over another psychology buzz word that did nothing for me. I was obviously just so fucked up that even this magic key couldn’t help me. Eventually my wife left me, my kids didn’t know how to help me, and my world fell apart.

I sunk deeper into depression and added suicidal intentions to the mix. I kept trying to ask everyone else I knew or met (including professionals like counsellors) to tell me what I needed to fix and each person I asked had a different idea of what I should do. None of them seemed to understand what I was going through.

It was in this mess I had become that I slowly started to find what was missing in my life the whole time. Someone was asking me for help. In helping her try to understand the dynamics of her relationship, I began to set boundaries with myself so as not to become part of the problem in her relationship. We were both vulnerable. We knew each other from working together previously. I had helped her leave her ex-husband. I knew there was a small risk of us getting close in a different way than she was asking for, so I set up some boundaries with myself to keep the discussions and interactions more professional and instructional and less intimate.

This setting boundaries for myself made me feel some sense of self control. When I crossed those boundaries a few times, I didn’t beat myself up about it, instead I added small changes to the interactions with her to reinforce the boundaries. This let me begin to have some confidence in myself again which in turn helped me set boundaries for myself in other areas of my life.

At first, I beat myself up a lot when I crossed the boundaries I set for myself. But eventually I set a boundary for that too. If I beat myself up too much for not holding my boundaries I would give myself a few days of playing video games and watching Netflix (my version of self care at the time) without guilt to help me feel like I could take care of my own depression.

It took a couple years, but eventually I learned to be OK with how slow I was making progress in my dream of writing/helping other men. By the time I found a life coach to help me get my own coaching business going, I had learned a lot about mindset and how our brains work to kill us, and about boundaries. I had learned to set up some significant boundaries with myself, and for the first time in my life I allowed someone else to help me create effective boundaries for myself.

To this day, the boundaries I set for myself are the hardest boundaries I have to set. I find boundaries with others are easy in comparison.

What this isn’t

Boundaries are like the lines on a hockey rink, they tell you when the rules change without preventing anyone from crossing. Barriers prevent entry, like the boards around the rink. You need a door or a gate in your barrier to let someone in.

Boundaries allow someone to cross them. Barriers prevent people from crossing them. If someone neglected to repay money we lent them, a boundary won’t necessarily stop us from lending any money to anyone, that would be a barrier. Boundaries don’t make someone do or stop doing something. That is a request or command, not a boundary. If there was infidelity in our romantic relationship, a boundary won’t prevent us from every loving again, a barrier would do that.

Boundaries aren’t meant to control other people. Boundaries are rules. They aren’t a tool to protect someone or something. They don’t give us the ability to disrespect other people. They don’t give us a way out of a bad situation, laws and policies do that.

You can’t get arrested for crossing boundaries. You don’t break a relationship because of crossed boundaries. You get arrested or break up because of crossed barriers. Sex without consent is a barrier. Killing someone is a barrier. Taking something that isn’t yours without permission is a barrier.

Any attempt to force the actions, words, or feelings of another person is a barrier, not a boundary.

What this is

Boundaries tell us when the rules change. Rather than preventing someone from crossing into our territory, boundaries simply define a new set of rules when they have been crossed.

In hockey, if you cross the opposing team’s blue line (a boundary), you’re offside. You may continue to play, but nothing you do past that point counts. We can shoot the puck anywhere we want to on the ice but if it crosses the goal line (another boundary), it counts as a point. The boards (barriers), on the other hand, are there to not only define the boundaries of the game, but to help prevent the game from going out of bounds. In most cases, we need to use a door or gate to get into and out of the game.

Boundaries in our lives work much the same way. We may set a boundary that defines what happens when someone doesn’t repay the money we lent them. It might put a limit on how much we’ll be willing to lend in the future, or it might simply be that we won’t lend them anymore until they repay the first loan. We are willing to continue letting the boundary be crossed and just change the rules when it does.

Boundaries helps us decide how to react to hurt feelings

Boundaries helps us decide how to react to hurt feelings. We might decide to leave the room or the building and take a set amount of time to process and deal with the feelings involved, or we might have a predetermined response to our hurt that lets us communicate our hurt without putting the blame on ourselves or the other person. They allow hurt to happen and give us a set of rules that let us choose a result instead of letting the hurt choose an irrational reaction.

Similarly, in a marriage, a boundary might define the rules when one person has an inappropriate emotional or physical relationship with another person. It might help us change how we show love to the other person or it might help us decide to seek a therapist or relationship coach. A proper boundary allows us to love again (perhaps even love the same person again) while honoring our own value and the value of the other person at the same time.

Boundaries help us discover our strengths and weaknesses; they help us see where we need more work or help and where we can help others. They show what we want and what we don’t want while allowing others to have some influence in our lives. They allow us to grow and evolve. They let us have relationships with complicated people. They enable us to work in situations we wouldn’t have normally chosen and still excel. They help us define ourselves.

What It Means

Barriers prevent something, while boundaries allow it and change the rules when it happens.

Sometimes we know what the boundaries are that we want, but the problem we may need help with is how to change the rules without putting up barriers. That’s where a therapist or life coach help us see a different angle on the situation.

For most of us, the first person we need to place boundaries with is ourselves

Many of the people I’ve helped want to prevent hurt and they think boundaries will help them do so. I help them deal with the hurt and their fear of that hurt. Only when we are open to our boundaries being crossed are we truly ready to set up boundaries. If it’s safety you need, boundaries aren’t what you’re looking for. Boundaries are a way to define ourselves, not prevent hurt.

For most of us, the first person we need to place boundaries with is ourselves. It’s important to remember, however, that boundaries allow us to cross them and simply change the rules when we do. If you want to change a bad habit, create a good one, or evolve your thoughts or emotions, boundaries can help us do that. Remember boundaries allow themselves to be crossed, sometimes many times, before the desired result is achieved.

If you want to discuss boundaries further or if you’d like some help setting up some of your own boundaries, drop me a line. I can help.