THIS VIDEO IS FOR MEN. We've been told we're only allowed to feel certain things and ways. I call BS.
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00:01 okay welcome back uh this
00:03 video is going to be geared towards the
00:05 men out there women
00:06 feel free to watch long i’m sure it’ll
00:08 be valuable too but i’m going to be
00:10 speaking most directly to
00:12 the the men the guys
00:15 and before i start i’m going to tell a
00:16 little story when i was um say 9 or 10
00:18 years old i think
00:19 uh i was in boy scouts we were in the
00:22 church
00:23 uh the field outside the church where it
00:25 was being held doing the things the boy
00:26 scouts do right
00:27 pushing each other and knocking each
00:29 other down and playing tag and all that
00:31 and we were running around at one point
00:33 and i fell down
00:34 hard and a friend of mine noticed he’s
00:36 like came running over to me he’s like
00:38 hey tim are you okay
00:39 and i did the thing the boys do like
00:42 yeah sure dust myself off pick this up
00:44 and i said yeah i’m fine and he said
00:46 something to me that i
00:47 honestly 30 years later never forgot
00:50 he said oh yeah you never cry
00:54 and this is probably one of the more
00:56 pivotal moments in my life
00:58 because in that moment i felt really
01:00 proud
01:01 that my friend had noticed me that i
01:04 don’t cry that i’m tough
01:06 that i’m strong and this is
01:10 how a lot of boys get socialized into
01:13 thinking
01:16 that men don’t have feelings big boys
01:18 don’t cry
01:20 men are tough and they’re strong and
01:23 and they don’t get emotional emotions
01:26 are for women and for girls and
01:30 men don’t let their feelings show and
01:32 really emotions and being all emotional
01:34 makes men weak
01:38 i want to put a really
01:41 clear and hard stop to this idea
01:45 that being emotional and having feelings
01:48 makes men
01:49 weak or that we’re not supposed to be
01:53 doing these things and feeling emotions
01:54 and that’s women’s work it’s not true
01:57 we as men have every right
02:01 to feel everything going on as much as
02:04 women do
02:06 we’ve been taught throughout the years
02:08 all of these lies to be honest
02:10 about how men comport themselves and
02:13 and you have to be tough and hold it in
02:17 and be strong for your family and
02:20 let them do all the breaking down but
02:22 you have to like hold the strong pole
02:24 and
02:25 while that may be true that that’s part
02:27 of a masculine role
02:28 it is a lie that that means you can’t
02:32 feel
02:33 all of the emotions that are actually
02:34 going on
02:36 now i’ll grant you men and women do feel
02:39 emotions differently
02:40 a female friend of mine several years
02:42 ago was telling me that she had this big
02:43 rash all over her face
02:45 and she went to the doctor and they
02:46 prescribed her some
02:48 steroids basically testosterone and she
02:51 was on it for a couple weeks and she
02:52 said oh my god i can’t
02:53 like this is so easy you guys have it so
02:55 easy it was so
02:57 she was amazed at how much the volume of
03:01 her emotional
03:02 reality was just turned down
03:06 and i’ll grant that men are men and
03:09 women are different
03:10 in that way that that the emotional
03:13 reality for women
03:14 is a much larger part of their life than
03:16 it is for men but to say that men don’t
03:18 have emotions or
03:20 shouldn’t express them or feel them it’s
03:23 not true
03:24 we have all of the same emotions that
03:26 everybody else does
03:27 anger fear sadness joy
03:31 gratitude aw if we’re not feeling these
03:35 things
03:36 then we’re missing out on life it is to
03:39 our
03:39 great detriment as men
03:43 that we tamp down all of our emotions
03:47 all right in a minute i’ll talk about
03:49 five of the the most
03:50 in my opinion the most um important
03:53 things that we get from
03:54 a rich emotional world but i just want
03:58 to say
03:58 that we are allowed all of the emotions
04:03 that the rest of the world is and to say
04:06 that we can’t have them or we shouldn’t
04:08 be feeling these and it makes men
04:10 weak is a lie and i want to put that to
04:13 rest
04:15 here’s here’s my top five reasons right
04:17 number one
04:19 emotions make us human emotions are
04:22 what makes humans human if we
04:26 deny our emotions we are denying a very
04:28 large
04:30 aspect of our humanity we’re not robots
04:33 we’re not animals and the reason one of
04:35 the major reasons for this is because we
04:37 are impacted and affected emotionally by
04:39 the world
04:40 and that’s okay there’s not only nothing
04:42 wrong with it
04:43 it’s great number two
04:47 women like it despite what you may have
04:50 heard despite what your mom said despite
04:52 what your girlfriend said
04:54 in general women like being around men
04:57 who have some sense of emotional
04:59 awareness and attunement
05:01 it not only uh it makes us more
05:04 trustworthy
05:06 it makes us better partners they feel
05:08 like they can actually show up fully
05:11 and the more fully woman can show up in
05:13 a relationship
05:14 the more fully she will like give
05:16 herself to you it’s it’s
05:18 really goes hand in hand with the amount
05:20 that that she can feel like she’s
05:22 welcome and if you don’t welcome a
05:24 woman’s emotions
05:25 she won’t be welcome and if you don’t
05:27 understand
05:28 your own emotions you can’t really
05:30 welcome hers as much
05:33 so that’s number two women actually like
05:35 guys
05:36 with emotional range number three
05:40 you take control of your life
05:43 whether we like it or not we have
05:46 emotions they’re all happening
05:48 inside of us a lot of times we’ve
05:49 disowned them we don’t know that they’re
05:51 there we don’t
05:52 recognize them we don’t know what it’s
05:53 all about but they’re still happening
05:56 and and and we’re sort of trained that
05:58 we’re allowed to have
05:59 a couple of emotions we’re allowed to be
06:01 angry as men that’s fine
06:03 we’re allowed to have pride in our work
06:06 or in our son
06:07 something like that that’s fine we’re
06:09 allowed to
06:10 grieve if our mother dies as long as we
06:12 do it quietly in private
06:14 that’s okay for a little while
06:18 but all of these things that happen
06:20 inside all this anger and grief
06:22 and pride and jealousy and
06:25 excitement enthusiasm all of that is
06:27 happening
06:28 whether we acknowledge it or not and if
06:30 we don’t acknowledge it
06:32 then it is subtly influencing our life
06:34 and it is making
06:36 us do things and change the way that we
06:39 act and react to people into situations
06:42 and so by having this emotional
06:44 awareness understanding what’s going on
06:47 here
06:47 in that in that feeling realm it means
06:50 we’re no longer being subtly manipulated
06:53 by things that we’re not aware of we
06:56 become aware of them
06:57 and therefore we we take more control
06:59 over them
07:00 and so if you want to take control over
07:02 your life
07:04 one great way to do it is to understand
07:07 the forces that are controlling your
07:08 life i.e these emotions
07:10 that’s number three number four is that
07:13 people make more sense
07:17 a lot of people just go around life
07:19 looking at everybody else and thinking
07:21 why are you just stupid or incompetent
07:24 or what
07:24 what’s going on and i can tell you the
07:27 more
07:28 you get in touch with your own emotional
07:30 realms and worlds
07:31 the more you look at other people and
07:33 say yeah
07:34 i get that i still don’t agree i still
07:37 don’t think that’s right
07:38 i still like you or whatever it is
07:41 but people start to make more sense and
07:43 situations start to make more sense when
07:45 you
07:47 once you have developed your own
07:48 emotional world
07:50 then you can in turn look look at the
07:54 outside world with more empathy
07:56 everything makes more sense life is a
07:58 little bit easier to deal with and less
08:00 frustrating
08:02 and finally and this is definitely the
08:04 most important thing in my mind
08:06 um when i started developing a more
08:10 rich emotional world my entire
08:13 life got more vibrant it’s like somebody
08:16 turned
08:17 into technicolor the whole world around
08:20 me
08:20 it’s having a full emotional life
08:23 honestly it makes your life more full
08:26 more memorable it makes your life more
08:28 invigorating more worthwhile
08:30 more gratifying all of these things
08:32 actually happen because we turn off the
08:34 robot
08:34 self of gotta go to work gotta provide
08:37 for my family
08:38 gotta take care of these things and it
08:40 gives us more
08:43 life inside of our life i don’t really
08:45 know how else to put it
08:46 it’s like everything is just a little
08:49 bit richer
08:50 in your entire world and for me that
08:53 alone
08:54 is enough to go through this rather
08:57 challenging terrain i’ll be honest
08:59 going into emotions and getting into the
09:02 emotional world
09:03 it’s not easy this is one of the bravest
09:07 most courageous things you might ever do
09:11 and so i don’t want to sugarcoat this
09:12 this is
09:13 a gauntlet i’m throwing down this is a
09:16 real
09:16 challenge to begin to delve into your
09:20 emotional life
09:22 understand what’s going on to name it to
09:24 talk about it with somebody else
09:26 these are very challenging things
09:29 they’re scary people don’t want to do it
09:31 and i’m going to say man up i’m gonna
09:36 like use this right man up
09:38 do something really hard and really
09:39 challenging and that’s get in touch with
09:41 all of your emotional realms
09:42 and share them with somebody else
09:45 probably the most difficult thing you
09:46 might ever do in your life
09:48 maybe the most gratifying as well please
09:51 let me know what you think about this
09:53 am i crazy is this a great idea try it
09:56 have you tried it if so do you agree do
09:58 you disagree
09:59 leave some notes in the comments below
10:01 and have a wonderful week
Historically, men have been taught that emotions aren’t for us. That being emotional is weak. That crying is for babies and women. That anger is OK, pride in someone else is fine, and you’re allowed to grieve dying family members… in private. But aside from those, we shouldn’t be bothered with them
Bullshit.
Yes, women are built to feel emotions more strongly than men. But that is more about volume than capacity. We have every right to feel all of the emotions in the human spectrum. Joy, sadness, excitement, depression, shame, forlornness, glee, awe. These are ours as
- Emotions make us human. To deny our emotional world is to deny our humanity.
- Women love it. Despite what we were taught, men with more emotional intelligence are more attractive to women, not less. They are more willing to be themselves around you, and are more willing to share themselves completely. They also trust you more deeply and respect you more, know that you are willing to go to the hard places they know so well.
- Take control of your life. Men not having emotions is a lie. As I said, they are part of what make us human, so they’re all happening whether we want them or not. And if we aren’t aware of them, then they influence us in ways we aren’t aware. You wouldn’t be OK with another person manipulating you and making you do things that weren’t under your control, right? That’s exactly what unacknowledged emotions do to us all the time.
- People make more sense. Having explored this territory for yourself, you’ll find that other people’s reactions and behaviors actually make sense. You may not agree or like them. But people will begin to make more sense and you will have empathy for them, where before all you could see in others actions was “Stupid.”
- Having a rich emotional world makes life…more. More vibrant, more full, more memorable, more invigorating, more worthwhile, more gratifying. As I began to cultivate my emotional world, my life took on more life.
The Challenge
So here is my gauntlet. I am issuing you this challenge, from one man to another.
Feel.
Feel everything, gross and subtle, that happens inside you. Become aware of them. Name them. Tell someone about them. Feel the depths of what is happening inside of you and don’t shy away from it.
Make no mistake, this is not girly work. Opening the emotional doors is some of the most challenging work a person can do. It is not for the weak or timid. Diving into this world requires great courage. It can also make your life so incredible, you’ll wonder why more men aren’t doing it.
Yeah, tell it Tim! Love all of this. True point: Women are attracted to emotionally intelligent men. Yes, myself and so many women I know have talked about this together so many times. It’s so attractive! So many of us feel this way.