The highly Sensitive man

We live in a day and time when men are much more sensitive than ever. Sometimes it can be a good thing and at other times it can be a bad thing.

Today I want to engage in some interactive conversation that will help us balance out when sensitivity is a strength versus when it is attempting to destroy us.

Touch Points

· Men are often held to a standard of masculinity that does not include showing our feelings.

· Men often bury their feelings in an attempt to conform to social pressure.

· Highly Sensitive Men (HSMs) experience environmental overload which can result in an explosion of emotion such as anger.

Men are often held to a standard of masculinity that does not include showing our feelings.

Being a sensitive man can present unique challenges, as men are still held to a standard of masculinity that does not often include showing their feelings.

Being a highly sensitive person involves struggling to cope with feeling overwhelmed by sensory and emotional information and the stress of modern life, and finding opportunities to express those feelings can be difficult.

Sometimes we’re aware of being overwhelmed, like when we walk into a room, and the music is so loud it hurts. And some of the information we absorb, we do so unconsciously.

What happens when we are not aware of it?

Even if we’re not aware of it, it has the same effect on us.

It’s the way we deal with them that makes the difference between health and sickness, happiness and despair.

Men are expected to hide their feelings, suck it up, and soldier on. That’s just not healthy.

Men often bury their feelings in an attempt to conform to social pressure.

Men often bury their feelings in an attempt to conform to social pressure and as a way of dealing with the feelings they themselves struggle to understand.

This kind of compartmentalizing of emotions (separating your feelings from your thoughts and actions) is often an unconscious coping tactic.

By stuffing unpleasant feelings such as anger, fear, anxiety, worry, and hurt into an imaginary box, a man can find it easier to move on.

Unfortunately, you can’t pick and choose which feelings go into the box.

If one goes, they all go, the positive ones, like happiness, enthusiasm, and love as well as the negative ones, like fear, anxiety, and hopelessness.

Highly Sensitive Men (HSMs) experience environmental overload which can result in an explosion of emotion such as anger.

Without practice showing feelings, can be difficult for men to even know how to begin.

What’s more, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to even be aware of what they’re feeling.

Consequently, when someone does ask how he is feeling, he responds that he is fine, that there’s nothing wrong.

The problem, however, is that he becomes emotionally distant from those people he cares about and who care about him, making it nearly impossible for him to receive the love and support he needs.

Part of what makes us human is our ability to feel our feelings and process our emotions.

When we’re happy, we want to smile and show excitement.

When we’re angry, our body tenses up and our voice level rises.

When we’re sad, we naturally want to cry.

When we avoid those emotions, it can lead to a number of consequences, including mental health disorders.

Suppressing emotions can lead to depression and anxiety, but for men especially, it can also increase their risk of suicide.

Men are much more likely to commit suicide than women.

For men, being told to “man up” or “act like a man” is something they learn in childhood, and it stays with them into adulthood.

Over time, men get really good at turning off their emotions or coping with their feelings in a way that is more acceptable for males.

It creates a cycle of toxic masculinity, which can be hard to break once it’s a habit.

Toxic masculinity

Toxic masculinity refers to the notion that some people’s idea of “manliness” perpetuates domination, homophobia, and aggression. Toxic masculinity involves cultural pressures for men to behave in a certain way. And it’s likely this affects all boys and men in some fashion.

This idea that men need to act tough and avoid showing all emotions can be harmful to their mental health and can have serious consequences for society, which is how it became known as “toxic masculinity.”

Toxic masculinity isn’t just about behaving like a man. Instead, it involves the extreme pressure some men may feel to act in a way that is actually harmful.

There are many definitions of “toxic masculinity” that appear in research as well as pop culture. Some researchers have come to agree that toxic masculinity has three core components:

Toughness: This is the notion that men should be physically strong, emotionally callous, and behaviorally aggressive.

Antifeminity: This involves the idea that men should reject anything that is considered to be feminine, such as showing emotion or accepting help.

Power: This is the assumption that men must work toward obtaining power and status (social and financial) so they can gain the respect of others.