Check On The Men Too
Men in our society are expected to be strong and stoic. In doing so, we must mask our emotion. However, bottling up our emotions can be detrimental to our mental health. Check on the men in your life.
There is a stigma for men to be strong, stoic, and guarded that has been established long before any of you readers or I were born. I have felt this pressure to be strong since I could remember. I recently watched an interview of The Breakfast Club that featured the mega-star, recording artist Tyrese Gibson. In the interview he was asked about his recent losses of family and friends and if he was “dealing” with the grief. As he sat up tall in his chair he began to tear up. He says, “Black men cry”. He began what to me would define a great moment in our time.
“Black men cry” is a powerful statement. Why? Because it felt like Gibson was letting us know that crying is something we do while also imploring us to cry. We need to feel the pain to process it. We need to express the pain to heal from that pain. So many of us men are suffering in silence. We hold it in to present our strongest version to the world. Unfortunately, if we share any other emotions other than anger, we leave ourselves vulnerable to the scrutiny of the people watching. For that reason, I applaud Tyrese Gibson for being vulnerable in front of the world for us all.
What Gibson said within his tearful speech was what really made the moment special for me. He called on the world to check on the men in their lives after major life tragedies. Men also experience loss after a woman loses a child due to miscarriage. Men also experience loss after a divorce. A man needs to be checked on when he is experiencing hardships in his career and is unable to put food on the table. We have emotions and experience grief and emotional pain like women do. We need to be able to process those emotions properly.
Read: What Is Cheating?
I can remember the feeling that showing too much emotion was a terrible thing to do. I was told to stop crying. I was told crying would not solve anything. I would eventually turn into an angry, Black boy that turned into a lost young man. Fighting and complaining was the only way I could express the amount of pressure I felt. Today I know better. It took me over 30 years, countless books, and many bad decisions to learn how to think critically and rationally. I am a better man because of the wins and the losses.
So, thank you Tyrese Gibson for your vulnerable moment. I respect you as an artist but also for showing the world how to stand up as a grown man while expressing emotions. Every man can watch that interview and reflect on himself. Not all of us were complicit in our hurting but let us all try harder to be intentional in our healing.
Why do you think society still struggles to accept men expressing vulnerability? How do you think this affects men’s mental health and relationships?
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