This morning, I visited a (neighbor)hood cafe Paassh, which came highly recommended by a friend living in another city, who ironically is often my source for what happens in Bombay! She would be happy to know I finally stepped out of my cave after the crazy rains of last week abated!
At the cafe, I met a wonderful person, and we had one of those lovely conversations that you wish wouldn’t end. We discovered our paths had almost crossed in more ways than one, and yet we were meeting for the first time. A bit like those Jeffrey Archer novels.
Amongst other things, without intending to, I ended up talking about Rajesh’s death, and she listened. Later, she shared this link on mental health for men titled Why Men Suffer in Silence?, and I immediately thought I must blog about it.
This conversation, produced by Spring Listening Room, touches so many chords — for men in general, women too actually, but personally for me, which is always what brings me to write here.
The panelists in this video discuss a range of issues:
- Suicide rates in India, especially among men
- Coping mechanisms men use — for example, gym and work
- Anger is the only expression that is allowed for men
- Addiction and avoidance
- Emotional awareness and communication gaps
- Natural masculinity and how performance masks it
- Need for safety for men to express themselves
- Changing societal roles
Each one of these threads is worth an episode on its own, and I am not going to discuss them in detail here. Instead, I will do my thing.
The notion of what it means to be a man in this world is a strong theme that runs through this blog. Sometimes, I have hinted at it, and at other times, I have written more directly.
Perhaps, it is in my two podcast episodes — one about my father (I Have Become My Father) and the other about my brother (Thank You for Being There, Even When I Pushed You Away) — that I have spoken at length about the different but similar struggles of us three men through our youth, marriage, parenting, post-marriage, and death. But interestingly, it also emerges in the episode about my mother, which is tellingly titled The Daughter She Wished For.
Before I get back to the video and the questions it raises, I want to reference a book that I have been meaning to write about and perhaps will do so separately at a later date: The Man’s Guide to Women.
The book has a key insight into men’s biology and psychology that was a revelation for me, and it is germane to the above conversation on why men suffer in silence; rather, what to do about it.
The book’s primary goal is to help men understand what women really want, but there is one section on conflict that focuses equally on how men work, and this was the part that I found particularly insightful. It brings a little more nuance to the oft-expressed grievance: why can’t men express their feelings freely, the way women do?
The key is not to do it the way women do, but in a way that is authentic to us!
Chapter 10 of the book, which is provocatively titled Learn to Fight Like a Girl, starts with a common refrain:
When conflict happens, a woman wants one thing: a good listener.
This is where it gets interesting — it is not that men are incapable of listening or are bad listeners per se, but in a conflict, something happens that prevents a man from being able to listen fully, and what results is either an outburst of anger or withdrawal — both unhelpful responses, and likely to lead to a further escalation.
The book goes on to say:
Where the differences lie, according to research, is in how men and women manage their anger.
And then:
The causes of women’s anger could be rooted in one or more of three categories: powerlessness, injustice, and the irresponsibility of other people.
And here is the clincher:
Men get more emotionally flooded and overwhelmed than women do in a conflict situation.
And finally, the key insight:
Only men who are able to reduce their heart rates are able to decrease the amount of criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling they contribute to the conflict.
Further: It takes a minimum of 20 minutes for the flooding to diffuse before the man has the capacity to listen again!
What does this mean in a conflict? The man must (a) develop the self-awareness to recognize when he is flooded and (b) know how to self-regulate to reduce the flooding.
So, the key skills necessary here are not listening and sharing, but they are self-awareness and self-regulation. When those are in place, the natural skills of listening can find their expression (and if needed, be improved).
The book suggests three strategies a man can use when he is flooded:
- Breathe!
- The age-old recommendation of counting to ten!
- If the above two don’t work, take a break!
Many men (including me), who are not prone to expressions of outward anger, through force of habit, skip the first two steps and immediately withdraw. While this is instinctively a good option to reduce the flooding, it leaves the woman frustrated.
This is when self-awareness comes into play: use the first two steps consciously, failing which, take the third, but with a twist: communicate the need for a break. Something to the effect of: “You know what, I’m having a hard time listening to you right now, and I will come back in 30 minutes so we can continue to talk.” And 30 minutes later, keep one’s word and return to the conversation!
This has been my learning ground. The capacity to reclaim my calm when triggered has changed many difficult interactions (not necessarily with women) in the recent past. Initially, it was hard because there was a very strong urge to defend and respond to perceived injustice. But shifting from a desire to be understood or heard to claiming the ground of unsuppressed calm has been a game changer.
The key, though, I realised, is venting, and I do that with my journal. For a long time, I was prone to spiritual bypassing, claiming to have a calm that was not really there, only to find resentment grow and explode inconveniently later. Now I respect venting. I take however long I need to vent, with colorful language, and only when I am sure that the calm is genuine do I start looking for a way to communicate again. Perhaps other approaches work, but this is mine. For now.
This simple step of recognizing one’s internal state and responding to it with kindness prevents the twin problems of either spilling outwards with anger or redirecting it towards oneself — both harmful.
Of course, this does require the woman (assuming a man-woman conflict) to recognize the man’s self-awareness in the moment and respect it. So there is something to be learnt for everyone involved!
Men who learn to be more self-aware and self-regulate can bring their natural gifts to bear not only in situations of conflict but also otherwise. They can catch themselves when they are sad, afraid, or triggered in some other way, and then find their own authentic ways to express or process these emotions. These expressions may not look like those of women, and that is fine. It may even be understood in silence sometimes, except now we are not suffering in silence helplessly but allowing that silence to guide us back to our innate strengths, which have been blocked.
It is not the silence of men that is an issue — it is how well we use it that matters! If we can trust our silence as a safe space and stay in it long enough to understand ourselves, and communicate the need for it clearly, that silence is not a sign of struggle anymore. It is a source of strength.
Featured Image: Photo by Khagen Gogoi on Unsplash