Something a little different this week. Ross previously worked with one of our therapists and recently decided to come back to therapy. He offered to share a little about his experience.

By Ross G.

For a long time, I think I viewed therapy the way a lot of men probably do. You handle your problems yourself. You push through. You stay strong for the people around you. And if something is bothering you, you figure it out and keep moving.

What I’ve learned is that sometimes being strong means admitting you don’t have to figure everything out on your own.

I was adopted as a child, and even though I grew up in an incredibly loving and supportive family, I struggled with feelings surrounding abandonment. When I was younger, I saw therapists, but it took time to find someone I truly connected with. Eventually, I found the right therapist, did the work, got to a much better place, and moved forward with my life.

Years later, life gave me another reason to reach out for help.

I went through a divorce, and then I unexpectedly lost my mom. I’m a father, and I’ve always wanted to be someone my kids could depend on. My instinct was to keep going, be there for everyone else, and handle whatever I was feeling privately.

But there is a difference between carrying something and actually dealing with it.

Therapy has given me a place where I can say exactly what I’m thinking without worrying about how it sounds or whether I’m supposed to feel that way. It has helped me understand why I react to certain situations the way I do, recognize patterns in my thinking, and challenge myself when my mind starts taking me somewhere that isn’t necessarily based in reality.

Most importantly, it has taught me that asking for help isn’t weakness.

A lot of us grow up believing we are supposed to be the strong ones. We’re supposed to provide, protect, solve problems, and keep our emotions under control. There can be a sense of embarrassment in saying, “I’m struggling with this,” or “I need someone to talk to.”

I used to identify with that mindset. Now I see things differently.

There is nothing weak about wanting to become a better version of yourself. There is nothing embarrassing about learning why you think or feel the way you do. And there is nothing wrong with having someone in your corner who can listen, challenge you, and help you see situations from a perspective you might not be able to see on your own.

Therapy hasn’t made difficult things disappear. It hasn’t erased loss, changed the past, or prevented life from becoming complicated. What it has done is give me better tools to handle those things.

It has made me more self-aware. It has helped me become a better father and a better friend. It has also taught me that mental and emotional strength aren’t about never struggling. They’re about being willing to recognize when something is affecting you and doing something healthy about it.

If another man reads this who has considered therapy but hasn’t gone because he feels embarrassed, uncomfortable, or thinks he should be able to handle everything himself, I would tell him one thing:

Give it a chance.

Finding the right therapist may take time. Opening up may feel uncomfortable at first. But there is strength in being willing to work on yourself.

I know that because therapy has been one of the most helpful things I’ve ever done for myself.

One Thing To Try

If there’s something you’ve been struggling with for a while but keep putting off getting help with, ask yourself:

Is my hesitation strategic, or is it avoidance?

Strategic means there’s a real obstacle. Time, money, family demands, or something concrete that makes therapy hard to fit into your life right now.

Avoidance is different. Your mind can give you ten good reasons not to do it, but really, you feel intimidated or scared to start something new.

You don’t have to do anything about it today. Just be honest about which one it is.

“The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry.”

— Brooks, The Shawshank Redemption

It was the best and worst job I ever had.

I worked there two summers, when I was 16 and 17, on the Eastern Shore of Virginia where I grew up. It was called the Experiment Station, a large farm where chemicals were tested on crops. God knows what I ingested out there, but this was the 90s. Nobody worried about such things.

Each morning at 7 a.m., me and four of my buddies met at the old farm trucks. We would rehash the previous night’s activities while the higher ups mapped out our day. Then we headed to the fields to string tomatoes and pick potatoes. Wisely, they separated us into different crews.

At lunch, we’d grab food at my buddy’s house. Maybe play some Nintendo, maybe take turns napping in his two La-Z-Boys. Then we’d head back out. By afternoon, the heat could touch 100 degrees.

After work, we met up, caroused around, got little sleep, met up the next morning and did it all over again.

It was the best.

There was an older man who worked there. He was maybe 60 or 70. I don’t remember his name, but I think about him often because of what he told me. He said in that old Eastern Shore country drawl:

“You know what the world needs more of? People just settin’.”

Not sitting. Settin’ is how he pronounced it. I loved that.

“Everybody’s always running around too fast. People used to sit on porches for hours just watching the world go by. We could use a lot more of that.”

His advice is even more important today.

After all, this was before iPhones. Before TikTok and Instagram Reels had us all addicted. Before AI companions and whatever the hell else is on the way.

Sometimes I find myself looking around in a waiting room, at an airport, or even at the beach, and almost everybody is staring at a phone.

When I start to feel judgmental about this, I recognize the many times that I convince myself checking ESPN.com for the 20th time that day is an urgent matter.

It’s astounding. I sometimes imagine it looks a little like America in the 1950s, when more than half of American men smoked.

And I don’t really blame us for being little addicts.

Tech companies have engineered truly ingenious inventions to tap into our innate reward systems and keep us engaged in order to profit from our attention.

It’s the Doritos for the mind.

And these devices are only going to get better at hypnotizing us. Twenty or thirty years from now, the phones we carry around today will probably seem as primitive as a Walkman does now.

Thus, the ability to sit and do nothing will become an even more vital skill.

Our daily life used to naturally provide these opportunities, places where we couldn’t distract ourselves.

Going to the bathroom, driving, taking a shower. These were places where we just had to be.

But most of us would sheepishly admit the phone gets carried into the stalls with us. We certainly dangerously peek at it while we’re driving. And once self-driving cars come on board, we won’t even have to peek. We can be fully immersed.

The shower is the last place I can think of where we can’t access a screen, and I’m sure someone will crack that code soon.

And meditation is fantastic. I’m a big advocate of it and have been practicing irregularly since my mid 20’s. But for a lot of people it can feel daunting, like one more thing to do in an already packed day.

But just settin’ is different.

You don’t have to schedule it or pencil it into your day. You’ll just naturally find choice points, opportunities that arise where you can either distract yourself or set.

Look for them. And make the difficult decision to not pick up the phone, turn on the TV or listen to something.

Sometimes it’s hard as hell, especially when you’re stressed or tired and your mind wants a quick hit.

When I have been jumping from task to task and my mind is particularly active or obsessive, I almost feel panicky at the idea of sitting still.

But that’s when I know I need it most.

Just sitting still, not meditating, not doing anything, for twenty, fifteen, ten, even three minutes is a radical act these days.

There is an old Buddhist image I love. Imagine a glass of water with dirt stirred into it. At first, it’s cloudy and murky. But if you just set it down and leave it alone, the dirt slowly sinks, and the water clears on its own.

Our minds are the same way. The more we stir and agitate, the cloudier things get. But if we just set the body down, the mud of the mind begins to settle.

And when we stimulate the mind all day, then expect it to just settle down, be at ease, or go to sleep at night, it’s akin to giving a kid a two-liter of Dr. Pepper to sip on all day long and then saying, “Go settle down now.”

It’s an unreasonable expectation.

As Annie Lamott said, “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”

Amazing things can start to happen when we don’t overfeed the mind. Problems get solved. Creative solutions come up. The mind wanders to the amusing nuances of life.

And sometimes, on the other side of that intolerable feeling of boredom, peace starts to arise.

It’s almost like the mind lets go. It stops tapping you on the shoulder to get you to do something else and just chills out for a second.

And you just sit, not in any particular way. You do it in those in-between moments, in waiting rooms, in the backyard, or when you’re waiting for your wife to get ready before you leave the house.

Maybe you watch thoughts come and go, or feel the heart beating.

Maybe you look outward. Notice the clouds and really pay attention to them, as if it’s your last day getting to notice them. Maybe you watch the birds come and go, or listen to the crows, the cicadas, or the harmony of leaf blowers out there in the distance.

We’re always in a hurry, always charged up. And I get it, we’ve got shit to do and emails to answer.

But slowness is still possible.

When the invitation comes to just set, take it.

Not as another thing to do, but just as a way of being for a minute, without having to be anything for anyone, at least for a moment.

One Thing to Try

Find opportunities to not fill the spaces in your day. When you first get up, sit down in your car, or find yourself in a waiting room.

Or just do one thing. Eat or drive without music or podcasts, even for the first five minutes.

When the choice comes up, distract yourself or set.

Just set the body down and notice. That’s it.

And please, for the love of god, let’s stop taking our phones into the bathroom.

This being human. Perhaps we’ve fucked it up a bit.

I imagine it used to be simpler. Certainly less complicated.

And yes, it was probably harder in a lot of ways, with the looming threat of drought or famine.

But how to live as a healthy, contented human was probably more straightforward.

Let’s back it up a bit. Imagine our grandfather 1,000 generations back.

Most likely, he lived in a tribal community consisting of family and friends.

He saw them every day. He hunted with them. Told stories with them. Laughed with them. Cried with them. Celebrated births and mourned deaths. 

He didn’t say to his closest friends, “We should get together sometime.” He certainly wouldn’t have been able to understand the concept of not being able to “find time” to connect with those he loved.  

His life was just saturated with connection.

His role in the tribe was clear. He would likely be a hunter. Not just for himself and certainly not for sport, but for the survival of everyone in his community.

His life had built-in purpose through belonging and contributing to the tribe, something bigger than himself.

He wouldn’t be as confused about food as we are. Meal plans wouldn’t have made much sense.

He would move naturally throughout his days when movement was needed, tracking, chasing, and killing wild game, then hauling it back to camp. He would have stared wide-eyed in bewilderment at modern people on a treadmill, running but not going anywhere.

When the sun went down and the fire went out, he slept. When the sun came up and the light returned, he awoke. He wouldn’t have known or cared what his “sleep score” was.

He would have eaten, moved and slept as his body was designed to.

His days were spent largely outside, benefiting from direct sunlight. The phrase “spend time in nature” wouldn’t have made any sense to him. Where else would he spend his time?

After all, he was nature.

There was no artificial noise or light. No screens or constant leaf blowers.

Picking up a glowing object and staring at it hundreds of times a day would have seemed insane. If he saw us today, I imagine him thinking, “What on earth could they be looking at?”

Because he had fewer mental inputs, I imagine his monkey mind was less jumpy than ours.  

His life offered more natural stillness, both outside and inside.

He probably didn’t use the phrase “I have to go to work.”

Everything in his life likely blended together. Flint knapping, dancing, sex, prayer, play, hunting, laughter.

He didn’t stare at the same four walls every day. He saw new horizons when the tribe moved camp to fresher hunting grounds.  

His days blended survival with novelty, adventure and spontaneity. In other words, joy.

And yes, maybe this is idealized. Life was certainly hard. Uncertainty abounded.

And if given the chance, maybe he’d trade spots with us in a heartbeat. The allure of easy calories, shelter, and safety might be too much for him to resist.

But one thing feels certain: the ingredients for human contentment were more naturally baked into his daily life.

Just like plants need sunlight, soil, and water, it seems to me as though all humans need the same core elements.

Connection. A sense of Contribution. Real food. Movement. Sleep. Nature. Stillness. And Joy.

And sometimes being human in modern society feels akin to a plant living in a closet.

Here’s my message: If you feel discontent in the current setup, I don’t think you’re broken. I think the setup is broken.

In our quest for comfort and convenience, we have made some crucial trade-offs.

Frankly, I think the fact that any of us manage to find well-being under these conditions shows the resilience of the human animal.

The truth is, it’s hard to be happy if we don’t have enough of these elements in play at any given time in our lives.

Honestly, we’re not necessarily supposed to be happy when these elements are missing from our lives. Sometimes discontent, even depression, is feedback. It’s an alarm going off saying, hey, something here needs attention.

After all, it would have been dangerous for our ancient grandfather not to move. How else would he gather food? Dangerous not to connect. What if he was alone and had no one to rely on? Dangerous not to contribute. If he wasn’t providing something to the tribe, maybe the tribe wasn’t providing for him.

Sometimes, of course, depression seems to show up even when the outside pieces are largely in place. Some bodies and minds are simply more inclined toward it. That’s part of being human too.

But other times, maybe the alarm is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. Maybe something in our life needs to be realigned.

So, what do we do about all this?

I know. It makes me want to join a commune or buy a van and head west. But I’d just take my modern-day baggage with me.

Maybe the answer isn’t to escape modern life. Maybe it’s to live more intentionally within it.

To take stock of what we’ve allowed to seep into our minds and bodies, and what we’ve let slip away from our lives.

Then decide what is actually nourishing and start bringing a little more of it back.

One Thing to Try

Write down these eight areas:

Connection. Contribution. Eat. Move. Sleep. Nature. Stillness. Joy.

Give each one a score from one to ten based on how fulfilled you feel in that area. One means not fulfilled at all. Ten means highly fulfilled.

This isn’t a judgment exercise. It’s an inventory.

Look at your lowest score and choose one simple action that would bring a little more of it into your life. Not in a year. Today. Or this week.

The goal isn’t to get each one to ten. The goal is to get each one to a “good-enough” place to restore well-being.

The author Jim Harrison said that we must learn to “protect ourselves from our own inclinations.”

If we fail to do that, we will keep stepping in the same holes, damaging the relationships that matter most to us and moving further away from the men we aspire to be.

But first, we have to know which of our inclinations we need protection from.

For my money, the place to begin that examination is thought.

Thought is involved in nearly every action we take.

Sometimes a thought comes first and feeds a feeling strong enough to push us into action.

Other times, a feeling or urge instantly arises, and thought steps in afterward to explain why we are justified in acting or not acting.

After all, the mind is a master justifier and a brilliant bullshitter.

“Thought” really just refers to a subtle internal voice that talks to us throughout the day. We hear it so constantly that we become accustomed to it and stop noticing it.

So, to recalibrate our awareness to its presence, try the following as an experiment.

In your mind, quietly think this phrase: What if I’m fucking up my kids?

Or, if that doesn’t land for you, try this one: What if this is as good as life gets?

Pick whichever one really hits. Think it a few times. Really listen to the voice saying it.

Do you hear that voice?

That is the one we are talking about.

It’s the one saying these words in your head as you read them. It’s the one planning what you are going to say while you are supposed to be listening to your wife. It worries about your upcoming presentation, your bank account, and your mortality.

It is not like the external voice you hear when you are talking to another person. But it is clearly there. We call it “my mind,” “my thoughts,” or “the voice in my head.”

We take ownership of it and identify with it, or even as it. But in our actual experience, it feels separate, right?

It’s just talking to us all day. Offering us suggestions and providing a running commentary as we move throughout our lives.

And in about 90% of life, it is incredibly useful.

It is our human superpower, after all. It is why we dominate the planet, for better or worse.

It knows our kids’ birthdays, lyrics from old rap songs, and the starting lineup for the 1991 Baltimore Orioles (at least some do).

It helps us plan, organize, learn from mistakes, and get through the day as semi-functioning adults.

But in about 10% of life, it feeds us terrible advice.

Advice that unnecessarily scares the hell out of us, beats us down, and makes us act in ways that we aren’t proud of.

And everybody has a 10%. Full stop. We are either aware of it or it is a blind spot. Those are the only two options.

Sometimes people tell me, “I don’t think I have a 10%.”

I’ll usually say something like, “Go ask your wife, your siblings, your parents, or your employees about that. Then let’s talk about what they tell you next week.”

Here is the easiest way to discover your 10%:

If I could listen in on your mind when you are struggling the most, what would I hear?

What incidents from your past does it relentlessly punish you for and refuse to let you forget?

How does it lead you to believe that you are screwed up beyond repair in some way?

When does it tell you that you are an imposter?

That if they really knew _______ about you, they would laugh, leave you, or fire you.

When does it tell you that it will all go wrong? Or that it’s all your fault. Or all their fault. Or that you don’t deserve any of this.

It probably tells you some story about who you are, who they are, what you are worth, what you could have or should have done, and what is waiting around the corner.

That is your 10%. And everyone’s is a little different.

It’s part of being human. The tax we have to pay for being so damn clever.

We have to recognize and take stock of our 10% before we can stop letting it run the show.

And that is an ongoing project from what I can tell.

Because every time I think I have my 10% accounted for, I realize it has found a new way to sneakily convince me to act in a way that is unaligned with the man I want to be.

Try This

Start a running list of your 10%.

Keep it in the Notes section of your phone. Just add to it as you catch the unhelpful stories in real time.

These are the areas of your life where your mind continually misleads you.

Write down the unhelpful stories it keeps returning to about you, other people, and the world. If you get stuck, ask someone close to you what they think belongs on the list.

Don’t get caught up in how to “fix” it. Just start getting acquainted with it.

He was a new client. A 45-year-old attorney in his first therapy session ever. And you could literally see the fear in his eyes.

When we first started talking, he leaned in and spoke quietly, like we were about to trade government secrets.

Then he opened up and started telling me things he had never told anyone.

That he sometimes fears he married the wrong person. That his family can feel like a burden. That every so often he fantasizes about running away from it all, or telling everyone to go to hell.

That he sneaks drinks in the garage. That if he’d known this is what life would feel like, maybe he would’ve made different choices. That there are times he acts petty, selfish, and manipulates situations to benefit himself, then feels like shit about it afterwards.

And I could tell what he was thinking.

That having these thoughts and feelings meant that he was uniquely fucked up.

And why wouldn’t he feel that way?

After all, we never sit down with other people and say, “Are you thinking, feeling, and doing all of this craziness too?”

No, we are conditioned to show others, “Nothing to see here. Keep it moving.”

When someone asks me how I’m doing, I’m always mildly amazed to hear myself reflexively say “good” in a voice an octave higher than my normal speaking voice.

Sometimes that’s a true statement. Other times it’s not.

But here’s the good news as far as I can tell. We all think, feel and do things that we would give anything for others not to see. Therapists included.

One of the many gifts I receive through my work is perspective. It normalizes my own form of human nuttiness.

I usually walk away from a session with some sense of compassion, excitement for the work the client and I have done, and relief that I’m not the only one.

Because painful personal shit isn’t proof that something is wrong with us.

It is simply proof that we are human, living in the 21st century. That we are being asked to carry so much each day. That we are over-communicated with, yet under-connected. That our world is littered with opportunities to be, as David Foster Wallace once put it, little addicts to something, anything. Just to give us a respite from it all sometimes.

To make matters more complicated, we have these human minds that are so brilliant yet cause us so much trouble.

When you consider that many of us have been taught to soldier on and not open up about any of this, it’s amazing we are doing as well as we are.

And here’s the other bit of good news.

We don’t have to fix any of these thoughts and feelings in order to “not be broken.” We don’t have to figure out where they came from, why they arose, or what they say about us as a person.

We can simply learn how to hold them up to the light and look at them objectively. From there, it’s easier to tell which ones we should obey and which ones are merely unhelpful suggestions.

And a lot of the time, the fastest way to tell the difference is just to get the thought out of our head and into the open.

Say it out loud to a person, a therapist, a friend, a men’s group, whatever. Or write it down. The second it leaves your inner world and lands somewhere else, you can usually see it more clearly for what it is.

Maybe we start to even realize, wait, that’s not even “my” thought. I didn’t choose it at all. My mind just handed it to me the way it hands everybody a thousand other suggestions a day, and maybe I don’t have to feel particularly proud or ashamed of any of them.

Once we realize everyone thinks and feels things they would never admit, it doesn’t fix the “problem” of having a human mind, but it provides one of the first benefits of therapy.

I saw it at the end of that first session. As we finished our walk-and-talk that day and he had finally said everything out loud, I could see in him a relief I have also experienced.

It’s the relief that comes from telling someone those thoughts, feelings, and actions without them recoiling in horror.

It’s the relief inherent in the sense of normalcy.

It’s as though something lifts.

Then we can learn to just notice this stuff, let it sit there for a second, and stop feeling defective because of its presence. 

One Thing to Try

This week, catch one thought that shows up and makes you feel like something’s wrong with you. Don’t argue with it, try to suppress it or blindly obey it.

Say it out loud to someone you trust or yourself. Or just write it down. The point is to get it outside your own head and see what happens to it in the light of day.

Most of the time you’ll notice it loses some of its grip the second it’s not just bouncing around in there alone with you.