Joanne Hughes Coaching

Men's Breakthrough Coach

Men's Health

The Ticking Time Bomb

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I spoke to a male friend the other day. As he was speaking I wondered how many other men felt this way. Do all men tend to not speak up in relationships?

I know we have all been responsible for perceiving men as strong, together, etc., but who said that men can’t be vulnerable? Did we as a society forget that men are human? Or has it been women and the feminine that has somehow helped to carve the male persona of being strong, being there when we need, having the mentality of “yes honey” but not bringing up fear, hurt, pain, or depression when they begin to feel this?

So, my Dad died when he was around 86 and my Mom died when she was 90. I can remember both my parents growing up and watching how they reacted and responded to things. I could see how my Dad carried grief after his best friend passed and how my parents kept that stuff hidden and pushed it down and never spoke about it openly.

I have learned though, through study of trauma and mental health that holding onto emotions, and not being authentic is truly like having a “ticking time bomb” inside of you. You may try to push things down, not speak your truth or become the passive one, but holding onto those feelings and emotions and just “putting up” with things is going to cause trouble for you down the road. Where you hold on to stress within your body, and you do hold stress in your body, that will one day transform into a physical ailment or disease. That’s why it is critical to deal with your emotions and feelings and become authentic.

I think sometimes we have an idea in our mind, a perspective and we perceive that something bad will happen or we will be rejected, laughed at, etc. if we speak our truth and are vulnerable. I believe that we build things up to be worse than they are. So what if you tell your partner that you are feeling scared, vulnerable, or unhappy? What if they did support you and listen without judgment? After all, men are human beings as well. We need to speak our truth and act authentically to have peace within us.

Communication is so powerful and such a gift when it is used to guide, correct, and lead. There are ways to speak and share thoughts and feelings without feeling that you will be chastized for it. As a couple, carve out time that you are completely free, completely present, put down the phones, turn off the tv and sit or walk and decide to take an hour or even 30 mins to share how your day went, how you are feeling and what you need from your partner to help you through it.

I would think of a relationship or marriage as being a co-founder of a company and it is crucial to make sure the company is running smoothly and that your employees are happy. You have to get comfortable addressing the hard topics and get comfortable with the dissatisfaction of the people in the company, but once you know what the challenges or problems are, you can get down to correcting what needs to be corrected.

The Rise of Mental Health and Suppression of Trauma.

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We see it in the news, we feel it within our homes and we see the stats across our screen of the rise of depression, anxiety, suicide and addictions. It would seem there is a national crisis that is happening across the country. The fear and isolation that I have spoken about recently I see spread. I can guess that these cases will only rise. Here is why I say this;

The last two years with CoVid amongst us has kept us isolated, divided (even more so than we have ever been) relationships have been damaged, loved ones have died or have fallen ill. But the one thing that we may miss is the fact that most people are walking around with pre-existing trauma. Trauma that will have stemmed from younger years, and the trauma that would have been suppressed by most because as a child, we had to cope, and therefore learned skills or learned to adapt a certain way but what becomes an obstacle to us as adults.

Coming out of this health crisis on the planet will not be an easy task, and we see that in the world with the mental health crisis that we see unfolding. The trauma that most of us have experienced at one point in our lives, and I will say it, that we experienced as a child, will have been suppressed, not talked about (especially in men) and as a child, again, we would have learned to adapt to the pain that we felt but as an adult, think of it as a festering wound within us, that has yet to heal and as other stresses in our lives continue to mount with Covid, the devastating discoveries of unmarked graves of children that died at the hands of people that should have been there to keep them safe and protect them will only deepen and break open wounds once again.

To me, it seems like there is this pit of horrors that lay within each one of us that has experienced trauma, and it is rumbling within the people. We each need to begin to peel back layers and go back to the root of our trauma so that we can begin to heal, uncover truths and begin to understand how we have learned to carry it around with us all these years so that we could survive and then maybe the stress of the world we are in today may be understood more and we will be able to heal trauma as it comes up. At least understand it more within our being and for us to truly see that we need to connect with ourselves because we each have the power within us to do our own healing.

Sexual #trauma in #men and where to begin the #healing.

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I often refer to the sexual #trauma of men in our country as “The Crisis”, countless people that come into my life and that I get to connect with have had some form of sexual #trauma. The numbers are crazy! In 1998 in the U.S 1 in 6 men experienced sexual abuse and 2.78 million men were the victims of attempted or completed rape. Meanwhile, in Canada, 11 Million from the age of 15 and up. Let’s just take a moment to let those stats sink in.

Most men don’t report these crimes. Instead, they live with guilt, shame, anger, and have a higher risk of alcoholism, depression, and suicide. Men and women both experience post-traumatic stress symptoms and emotional issues, yet there seems to still be a reluctance to recognize and validate the amount of pain this causes. Why is that? Sexual trauma, if not dealt with, has lifelong effects on both men and women. I think as a society and as a parent, we don’t want to believe that our children, especially our sons, have been put in a situation that puts our children at risk. We can not always know though who is safe and who is not. Sometimes, the parent has to realize that they are human and it is not always their fault, but rather deal with the emotions and feelings of the child.

Men often worry about the sexuality as a man but then as an adult might not fully express themselves for fear of being judged or ostracized by peers or family so it feels more safe to keep it to themselves. There is fear around being vulnerable and having others shame them for their own sexuality or even question their masculinity. I also read an article that in Canada their are 3….yes only 3 organizations that address this. Shameful!

In my opinion, the only way to begin to heal is to have more conversations around this topic, to be open to hearing about sexual trauma experienced by a male. I know that it can be difficult for people to hear, although I don’t understand why a person would be too uncomfortable hearing about trauma to not want to allow open and safe space to hear the stories of abuse. So how do men begin to heal from trauma?

  1. First, know that assault is not a fault of yours! It is usually perpetrated by someone in a position of power or authority. You didn’t ask for this to happen.
  2. I have found at least in my lifetime, that when we work through trauma ourselves, we tend to “re-live” our trauma, or go towards situations where we can work through that trauma. The victims may feel guilty because they may go back to that memory and find some piece of pleasure in it and then worry about their sexuality and feel guilt.
  3. Find a professional or a friend that you know you can trust and talk about it. Work through it. Getting to a place where you accept what happened to you, acknowledge to yourself that it wasn’t YOUR fault and that it is not who you are!
  4. Writing in a journal daily to help the feelings and thoughts in your head get down on paper to help process the experience, thoughts and emotions that surround the trauma.
  5. I find that the biggest thing with trauma, is not to deal with it alone. Bringing it up for the first time will be the hardest thing about it. Understanding that you are Ok, that you are human, and that you can work through this and not be free of it, but to possibly know that your trauma and abuse that happened when you were a child, will not happen now. To realize that you, as an adult, can protect yourself, and not have to experience it again. Talk and keep talking.
  6. Self-love. loving yourself, finding joy in your life. Recreating a mission for yourself! Finding meaning and purpose in something in your life. This keeps you moving forward with focus.

Men have difficulty acknowledging their experience as being traumatic. The average age for a male to seek help is roughly 45 years of age and I hear that men always wish they had went a lot sooner. You are not alone, seek help, heal the wounds.

Joanne Hughes is a Men’s Breakthrough Coach specializing in Trauma and Depression. Joanne’s program “Mission Im-possible” helps to break through negative self-talk and mindsets to see the possibilities of greatness and to inspire the process of rewriting a mission statement of self to go forward fearlessly with acceptance and love into the future.

Purpose, Passion, Mission In the Sunshine.

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I chose these three words when I began my path as a Men’s Breakthrough Coach because I saw these three words as a driving force behind an empowered man. I also think that after so many years we sometimes get “foggy” or “uncertain” to these three points. I feel that when we have “Purpose”, we work towards something, we have a focus and a path. The “Passion” is there when there is even more clarity on why we have that purpose, that focus, and why we are doing the job that we are doing….a forward motion. The “Mission” is something that I have talked about with my clients as it helps us to get real clear on what it is that drives us, a commitment to ourselves that ignites that passion within and holds us accountable to the steps, thoughts, and actions that we are taking.

Look, we all sometimes get lost in life and question whether or not we are on the right path and taking the right steps and doing things for the right reason. Mission “I’m Possible” is a program that helps you to get clear on your “right” path, understand why you might be projecting unconscious trauma’s into your current path, and how thoughts that you might be unaware of will dictate the outcomes of your current path, how they might “dull” the emotional body and your physical body which then all contribute to a lack of responsiveness and clarity to what your purpose and drive are. Figuring that out and writing a Mission statement for where your life is taking you and what commitments you want to set out for yourself helps to push us past the fog and “languishing” that you might be experiencing in your life now. Mission I’m Possible deals with the emotional body, the mind, and with a twist of Golf into the workshop for spiritual connection, community, and the great outdoors along with inserting movement and flow, you have a complete, well-rounded arena to create lasting change.

It’s hard to get out of the continual “rut” to gain enough clarity about our current feelings and bring about a more peaceful and balanced outcome when we are stuck in the office, the house and in the prison of our minds. Getting around others of like mindedness that want growth and fulfillment help to become aware and open up to greater opportunities, making lasting change and friendships. That’s what I want to create here.

You can sign up for the Mission I’m Possible Weekend here: https://joannehughescoaching.ca/product/mission-im-possible/

The silent killer – men’s mental health

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It wasn’t that long ago that the rate of depression and mental health problems were much higher in women. Now, according to “Canadian Mental Health Association” Men are up there along with women.

It seemed back in the day that women were the ones that had postpartum depression and now we see that men as well are also vulnerable to having Postpartum depression. We as women would maybe doubt that because after all, it’s our bodies that go through the stress of pushing out a 7 lb baby! Although, I can understand why there would be more depression there for men nowadays. I mean, men are seen as the breadwinners of a family, and now that family just increased by one. The world is a strange place and jobs are not all that secure or certain. I could see that stress pile up for men.

Men also have a “Male Menopause” once they reach 40! Men will struggle with;

– low energy

– low libido

– difficulty concentrating

– insomnia

– mood swings

Men in general though, have a difficult time handling these symptoms and don’t always seek help with these or with depression. Why is that? A question that I have been asking myself like ALOT lately has been “Have women gone too far on the whole “We are the ones to suffer for everything?” Maybe, just maybe, we have done so much marching for our rights, whining that we have all these problems and we have over-looked men and what they might be going through and experiencing as they go through different stages of life. So what can men do about all the emotions and changes in their bodies that they are experiencing?

Firstly, I believe that the whole toxic “Men are strong enough to handle stress on their own” is just hogwash! Men are people too and it will all depend on how a person was raised, what values his/her parents instilled in them growing up, education and communication. Men typically will not seek out help with depression or with mental health. They feel like they should “buck up” and so most will not talk about it, will suffer, and the worst-case scenario..suicide.

I think it’s time, as a society, to start talking about mental health and depression and how it affects all of us, not just women. I think we need to start to educate people on this in school, talk about mental health and how it affects each of us, and that it is difficult for ANYONE experiencing change and not just limited to women.

So let’s change the story to “Men are brave because they speak up about their feelings and emotions and know that it is not weak to ask for help”. I for one want to see our men succeed in life in every way.

**Joanne Hughes is a Strategist and can be found at www.joannehughescoaching.com. Soon to have a new location and a new look!