Can Telling The Truth About Yourself Really Set You Free?

A man coach and his friend Sven Masterson

Welcome brother! 

This week'sHappy Man Friday message opens with expressing gratitude for all the brothers in our life who care about us and offer us the freedom to drop the masks we wear, pretending to be who we are not, letting go of the need to prove ourselves, to prove our worthiness, to prove our value. 

These brothers allow us to be vulnerable without judgment or shame. They challenge us because they love us and they accept us where we are in this moment and in doing so show us what acceptance, empathy, and unconditional love looks like.     

The freedom to be our true, unapologetic, authentic selves is something we may be telling ourselves we don't have in other areas of our life. We may be pretending to be someone we are not or doing things we don't want to do to get people to like us or keep people happy. 

We may be telling ourselves that if anyone knew how we really felt or thought, they would abandon us or think us selfish. We may be hiding our true self, living small, trying not to upset others while silently killing our own spirit slowly.

We may not realize that we are the ones doing the hiding and pretending. We are the ones slowly killing our own spirit. We are being judgmental, unloving, and unsupportive to ourselves. We are hoping to manipulate and control circumstances and people in order to have a "problem free life". We are not being honest with ourselves and we sure aren't being honest with the people in our lives.

But, the good news is that since we are the ones causing our own pain and giving away our power to others, we can choose to stop at any time, to take back our power, to be honest, unapologetic, and loving. We can stop doing what hasn't worked. We can stop trying harder to get the same old tired habits to finally work. We can crawl out from under the burden of shame that has become our own personal hell on earth. We can tell the truth about ourselves.

It all starts with being honest with ourselves first and then reaching out to a brother here in the community. In doing so, we show ourselves love and support by asking a brother for help AND we offer the opportunity for our brothers to be there for each other. We give them the gift of vulnerability, of revealing our true selves, of letting a brother know that he's not alone and he doesn't have to be perfect to listen, love, and support another brother.

To you and all the men in this community, thank you for your unconditional love and support. Thank you for simply meeting each other wherever we find each other today, without judgment, and walking together, sometimes quietly in thought, sometimes in pain, sometimes in joyous laughter.

If you haven't already, drop the mask. Reach out to a brother. Let him see you and let him be seen by you. It may be a first for you both.

You are my brother and I love you.

Charlie McKeever
Happy Man Coach
HappyManCoaching.com


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