{"id":2907,"date":"2017-11-01T15:28:15","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T15:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/?p=2907"},"modified":"2018-02-01T11:56:27","modified_gmt":"2018-02-01T11:56:27","slug":"man-up-what-does-it-really-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/2017\/11\/man-up-what-does-it-really-mean","title":{"rendered":"MAN UP: WHAT DOES IT REALLY MEAN?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/strong> Deoye Falade<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Express yourself. It\u2019s healthy and you\u2019re not losing anything<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Stereotypes.<\/p>\n

They inform how we view people, things and the decisions we make about them. They\u2019re sort of an educated guess; if A is from B and everyone you\u2019ve met from B behaves in a particular way, then A is likely to behave the same way.<\/p>\n

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I guess this is why they say men are from one red planet where all that matters are things like cars, video games, the latest tech out there, women and other awesome stuff.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s all fine and dandy but I would like to talk about how we feel.<\/p>\n

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You see, as men, we have been fed on a whole lot of stuff growing up and in our continuous \u2018adulting\u2019, we feel we have to be a particular type of macho to be considered manly. We\u2019ve been taught to appear stoic \u2013 which in itself is a good thing, unfeeling and detached.<\/p>\n

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But are we really detached?<\/p>\n

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Turns out we\u2019re not.<\/p>\n

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Men are both rational and emotional beings. You could argue that women are more expressive but it\u2019s really as a result of one gender being taught to drown or \u2018internalise\u2019 their feelings. No, it\u2019s not manly for a \u2018real man\u2019 to talk about how he feels or to truly express what\u2019s going on in his head or mind. Not to express his pain even when he feels it. Not to really express love even though it courses through his being, just like the blood that traipses through his veins.<\/p>\n

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Quick question: how many of us guys were ever told by their fathers that they were \u2018loved\u2019 growing up?<\/p>\n

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For where? As a result, you can\u2019t even tell your friend you love him without adding #NoHomo just in case. For me, I wasn\u2019t told by my dad. Of course, I knew he did but he never said it. I don\u2019t even remember ever being hugged by my dad. If he did, I was probably still very little as I vaguely remember him holding my hand when we go on walks back then, when he would sometimes carry me on his shoulder. I remember the random gifts and commendations when he\u2019s talking to his friends. I feel the pride. It was just never verbally directed to me. Now, we do handshakes now once every year or so but that\u2019s it (maybe that\u2019s why I\u2019m not much of a hugger now but really, everyone needs a hug once in a while.).<\/p>\n

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My father has changed though. I guess old age softens people but it\u2019s kind of awkward for me whenever I get an emotional text from him \u2013 just like he sends to my siblings.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m like, \u201cWait oh; dad is all shades of mushy in this text. This is just all shades of weird…\u201d<\/p>\n

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We just were rarely shown direct verbal affection and if we\u2019re not careful, the cycle of being thought to \u2018man up\u2019 by numbing a part of our humanity will continue. Not with me though. Son or daughter, I\u2019m going to express myself to them. Tell them they are loved every chance I get. I\u2019ll not just show them, I\u2019ll voice it to them as well. Let that validation start in the home, lest they seek it elsewhere.<\/p>\n

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On the flip side, how come we were indirectly taught to express the negatives \u2013 anger, force, aggression and all such nasty stuff? I reckon that some men beat women because they can\u2019t settle down well enough to connect and communicate on a level playing field. I could go on about this but this particular one is a topic for another day.<\/p>\n

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The bottom line is: express yourself. It\u2019s healthy and you\u2019re not losing anything. Some of us might be emotionally withdrawn most of the time not just because we\u2019re men but because of who we are \u2013 temperament wise. Still, I\u2019m learning. I\u2019ve realised that it\u2019s healthy to cry when you feel like (hey, I took Ed Sheeran\u2019s advice). I\u2019ve felt better every single time. It doesn\u2019t have to be public and it\u2019s okay to talk about it.<\/p>\n

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Internalising our emotions isn\u2019t cool even though we\u2019ve been told otherwise for years and we pass the same ideas on. Research has shown that men are more likely to commit suicide compared to women and one of the reasons is because we find it difficult to express our innermost feelings, fears, challenges, etc.<\/p>\n

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You\u2019re not Superman; the weight of the world doesn\u2019t have to rest on your shoulders. It\u2019s perfectly okay to ask for help when you need it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Feel. Express. It\u2019s healthy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Deoye Falade   Express yourself. It\u2019s healthy and you\u2019re not losing anything   Stereotypes. They inform how we view people, things and the decisions we make about them. They\u2019re sort of an educated guess; if A is from B and everyone you\u2019ve met from B behaves in a particular way, then A is likely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2916,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2907\/revisions\/2916"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}