Book Reviews
Hold the front page! This is what the papers say. If you’ve come across anything else, please let us know. Apologies for the lack of radio interview sound bytes – coming soon!
The Voice
12 December 2005
Men Relating Badly
by not speaking up about issues, guys make relationships harder
By Jennifer Hall
Men who don’t talk about their thoughts and feelings are not only a problem for nagging wives or partners. A lack of openness can have long term detrimental effects.
Remember that men under 35 top the suicide list. Conditioned throughout their formative years by school attitudes and family tradition, western men are taught to be the ultimate he-man: all brawn, butch and fearless. It’s little wonder many men have difficulty communicating their true feelings when, throughout their upbringing, they have been taught that men don’t cry, show emotion or vulnerability.
Where women release this type of negativity, men internalise it, giving it free rein to fester and boil until ultimately they explode. Anger, frustration and the thought of losing control makes for an extremely volatile and unpredictable fellow.
Men’s lifestyle guru Michael Elias is familiar with the cycle that can set men on a trail of self-loathing. He’s been there himself and now runs a Men’s Group to help other men to accept themselves as human too. He believes men fail to communicate their feelings to protect themselves for a variety of reasons.
“Men are ruled by humiliation, they will rather die than be humiliated. It starts in the school playground or even before that in the family. Kids respond negatively when their parents withdraw instead of talking to them, the effect is worse than shouting,” he says.
“Later they don’t speak because there’s always going to be the consequences if they do speak. They think people will have something on them. It can have anything to do with sex, crime, whatever. Another reason is the fear of abandonment. One boy of 21 recently died form testicular cancer because he was too embarrassed to report it.”
A professional feng shui consultant, Elias has been running a no-holds barred monthly meeting for men for the past 18 months at
Spitalfields in London, where men of all races, backgrounds and demographics are encouraged to talk openly about their feelings and experiences. In this relaxed atmosphere where no demands are made, men are under no pressure to talk – which appears to allow them to freedom to do just that.
Awareness
“It’s not about sitting around and whingeing. It’s a quick skirt around the issues, where you open your mouth and listen to what comes out. The name of the game is self-awareness, no one tells anyone else what to do or what not to do.
“We can respectfully share our thoughts and experiences and respectfully challenge one another. We don’t turn up to compete or perform for the others but to listen to what we are thinking, feeling and saying, there and then. Self-awareness truly is power,” explains Elias.
“When men come to the group they buy into their similarities rather than the differences. The men open up during the first session. People always ask me how you do that. Then we get to the real shenanigans; it could be a topic about being a father, school, health, children, etc. They guys leave their egos at the door pretty quickly. It takes just one person with the courage to go a little deeper and then the rest will follow.”
Elias, who came to the UK as a Ugandan refugee in the 1970’s, has worked in the field of men’s emotional health for a number of years. In the course of his work, he began to learn more about men from other cultures and how they differed from men in the West. He has studied tribal groups in Fiji, India and Australia* and he once ran a successful men’s health centre in Sydney**.
“I felt I had to express myself to the world and now I am not a victim any more.”
*Lived with, rather than studied.
**Natural health centre for men and women