A good man lets his mind be still so that he may listen to the truth that resonates from his heart.
The type of man I was taught to be was one who kept problems to himself. The man that hides his true feelings behind a furrowed brow and thousand-yard stare. Someone who is supportive, but at arm’s length. I was taught to be stubborn, getting locked into a mindset, and just keeping your head down, paying no mind to the concerns of others. If you get sad, or you get upset, just leave that behind. Swallow it down. I started to notice a strong correlation in my family of emotional repression and all types of substance overuse and abuse.
How my life story and Movember fit together
I’ve known about Movember for years. November would come around every year and I would see people start to grow moustaches. I even tried it one year, although to be honest, I didn’t really know why I was doing it. This year I took on my first marathon, a huge milestone in my life, and I wanted to make sure that in doing it, I could encourage other men who have had similar stories or upbringings as me to do the same. And so I partnered with Movember to raise funds and share that.
The journey to get here started a long time ago, and involved a lot of uncomfortable questions to bring me to a place of being able to recognize what needed to change in my life. We all dig into our ancestry a bit, our origin story. Where did our parents come from? Where did our grandparents come from? And I started to notice a significant pattern with the physical and mental health of the men in my family - a lack of self-care, and the language to express themselves emotionally to those around them, causing anger and frustration, resulting in a feeling of isolation and being misunderstood.
I got older, started working on myself and taking long looks in the mirror, realizing I had a hard time loving the man I saw. I looked around me and began to realize how genuinely impactful the male role-models in my life were. My father, my uncle, the leaders of our local congregation, the men on TV.
I started to make it very intentional that I wanted to live up to being a good male role model for myself and for the men around me. And so, upon looking for organizations that really shared this goal of redefining what a good man is, I came across Movember again, and it seemed like the perfect alignment.
As a white kid growing up in the suburbs just outside of Toronto in a Roman Catholic/Jehovah’s Witness family, I had a specific type of man and manliness role modelled for me, and that was a model that I followed without ever questioning it. But it was not a model of life that I could see lead to happiness or wellbeing. The role models I was given didn’t live up to the world I wanted to live in, none of them even liked the world we live in. And from that I realized how important it was to change that model, to do that work for myself and for other men around me.
The man I was taught to be
What would a good man do? These six words have now provided a guiding question that I ask myself when looking for a way forward in navigating those tough, morally grating decisions in life. Would a good man do this? Let me tell you that this question makes life a lot easier to navigate as a man…but first I had to work my way back down a long and difficult road to figure out what a good man looks like.
This first found its way into my lifestyle at a young age. By the time I was five years old I was the biggest kid in class, at six I was the biggest kid I knew and by ten I was declared morbidly obese. Childhood was really challenging for me and my parents tried their best with severe limitations and examples set for them. I was always trying to escape the cycle of abuse in any sort of way I could. This ended up turning into an eating disorder that put me into a life-threatening state, topping out at 352lbs by the time I hit 17 years old. Getting a handle on my eating and exercising habits was the first step, the first win for being the man I really wanted to be - disciplined. At 19 years old and 160lbs later I finally had a body that I could recognize, and I left the environment I had at home and was finally on my own two feet. It was then I realized, entering the world that the work had only just begun.
At 24 years old, I held my dad’s hand as he took his last assisted breath. Cirrhosis of the liver brought on by decades of alcohol abuse, a fatal condition only because he chose to tell no one that he was dying - he buried his feelings right to the end. Looking at the drink, and cigarette in my hand the day afterwards I realized how much of the man he was, was the man he taught me to be. “Keep problems to yourself, have a beer alone to forget, to bury, keep going, everyone is counting on you.” We men carry these stories in our minds and hearts each and every day and they shape the way we carry ourselves all the way to our final breath.
Change doesn’t come overnight
We all get to go on a really beautiful journey in the body we have, which come with unique challenges. After an early life of struggling with emotional repression and obesity, I remember when I turned 19 I was finally in a body that could jump and run, I had found the discipline needed in myself. In difficult times we fall back to our training, the practices we build when no one is watching. For my father, that was drinking. For me now, that was movement, and exercise. This opened the world up for me in a way that I had never felt before. That brought me to running.
Change very rarely comes in the form of something that you wake up to and you’re suddenly someone else. Change very often comes in the form of a small thing that you do every single day, that leads you to a place where eventually you’re someone different through the choices you’ve made. Being able to run was a huge milestone for me, because as a kid, it seemed impossible. I started to go from running down the block, to a kilometer, two then five, I’ll never forget my first 10k, and then one day not too long after that first run around the block, I was pinning my number on for my first half-marathon.
This past year, I decided to run my first full marathon for men’s mental health, starting with my own and then choosing to use that moment to raise funds and awareness for Movember. When it came to training for this next goal, it was about setting a pattern of discipline, a routine, and goals. I am lucky in my career in film and TV where you go for it and sometimes are figuring things out when you show up. That doesn’t work for marathons, at least not for me, so I had to set a plan in motion and stick to it.
I don’t think you have to be a marathon runner to be a good man, but part of being a good man in the world is being good to yourself.
This means finding a goal that aligns with your heart and taking the smallest of steps each day towards realizing it. The vast majority of what it takes to live a good and healthy life is just showing up. And we absolutely must show up for ourselves first. A good man lets his mind be still so that he may listen to the truth that resonates from his heart. I have never met someone who truly didn’t know what to do next. It’s likely daunting and involves something that you may not fully understand, but being a good man for yourself and the men around you involves being true to yourself.
The journey continues with Movember
Really, you can’t run a marathon for anybody but yourself. But I found it very encouraging, very motivating to not only run this marathon for me, but to raise money for men’s mental health through Movember. During my training, I had men reach out to me and say, “I get how you feel, I feel that way too.” It really reminded me how we are all in this together and need each other. It meant a lot to me to find an organization like Movember that I could partner with, raise money for, and raise support to help foster more communities around the world that encourage men to step from the side of “there’s no way I can do that, but I wish I could” to “I’m going to take my first step.”
I hope that the money raised during Movember goes into creating spaces and environments where men feel comfortable showing up as themselves, expressing themselves in a way that makes them feel rejuvenated, heard and understood. And that they get to walk out feeling like a greater and more aligned version of themselves.
There’s this irony in the culture built by men for men, that you must ignore weaknesses to be strong. How counterintuitive?! It is by focusing on and tending to the areas within us that need the most care, that we can become stronger and more capable people. An important part of my journey has been radical honesty and openness about the things I’m bad at. I know I’m going to mess up. I’m going to make mistakes. But being able to say those things from a place of comfort, knowing that having a weakness is literally the first step towards new strength.
Speak openly about your emotional state with others, own your place in this world and the outcome of your choices, honour the health and vitality of your body and treat it with love and care. And when you know what the healthier and more honourable choice is – listen. Open up to another man about something you are struggling with or share a deep goal that scares you. You will be so pleasantly surprised by the kindness and reception you receive.
And most importantly, be radically honest with yourself. You are capable of great things.
