More Than Tough: The Real Work of Being a Man
Strength isn’t the absence of pain—it’s the courage to face it.
The Illusion of Strength
I saw it often during my years in law enforcement—men who would rather drink themselves to death or would rather eat a bullet than end up on the “rubber gun squad.” Therapy was for the “weak.” Real men didn’t talk about feelings—they just endured, urging others to get help but never going themselves.
These were men who could charge into chaos without blinking but froze at the thought of confronting fear, grief, or guilt. The uniform gave them identity, but it also became a shield. Beneath that shield was pain with nowhere to go.
From childhood, boys are taught that silence equals strength—don’t cry, don’t talk about it, don’t let them see you break. That message starts early—ball fields, job sites, dinner tables, churches—and by adulthood, that silence hardens into a kind of prison. My dad used to say, “Suck it up, cupcake,” and I can’t remember him ever being vulnerable.
Men lead suicide statistics, fill prison cells, and often die emotionally exiled while insisting they’re “fine.” You can see it in their faces—the exhaustion of holding everything in while trying to look unshakable. That isn’t strength. It’s survival mode dressed up as masculinity.
We’ve built a culture where men will risk their lives to avoid feeling anything—and we call that strength.
Anger: The Only Acceptable Emotion
Most men are taught that sadness, fear, or loneliness are signs of weakness. Those feelings get rerouted into anger—the one “masculine” emotion society permits. Anger feels like power, a shield when vulnerable. But as Jackson Katz writes, countless men convert vulnerability into rage to prove they’re strong enough to endure pressure. The result? Emotional distortion and disconnection.
From a young age, boys learn that every “weak” emotion must be replaced with anger. Sad? You’re soft. Afraid? You’re a coward. Lonely? You’re pathetic. Over time, anger becomes the only outlet that feels safe—because anger looks like control, even when it’s just fear in disguise.
That’s why so many men end up sitting in dark rooms, staring at the floor, wondering why they can’t feel anything anymore.
Numbing the Whole Spectrum
Brené Brown reminds us we cannot selectively numb. When men shut down sadness or fear, they also dull joy, gratitude, and love. Emotional suppression becomes anesthesia—and like any anesthetic, it wears off, leaving emptiness behind.
You need sadness to feel joy, loss to appreciate what you have. But when pain is silenced, the whole system shuts down. That’s why so many men appear emotionally flat: it’s not that they don’t feel—it’s that they’ve trained themselves not to.
The Shame Spiral
Repressed emotion breeds shame. You feel something you “shouldn’t,” then feel ashamed for feeling it—creating a loop of self-rejection. Many men try to escape it through success, sex, or status. They chase external validation to quiet the internal void, but it never lasts.
Johnny Cash had everything a man could want—fame, wealth, respect—and still nearly destroyed himself with addiction because he hadn’t faced the pain beneath the persona. When he finally got sober and started writing from that pain, not around it, he created the most authentic work of his life. Vulnerable Cash was stronger than invincible Cash.
Strength Misunderstood: The Stoic’s Way
One of the most misunderstood ideas in history is that Stoicism means emotional suppression. It doesn’t. The Stoics never taught that feelings were weakness—they taught that feelings were information. They believed emotions were natural, and our task was to understand and guide them, not bury them.
Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and soldier-philosopher, wrote Meditations not as a victory speech but as a journal of his inner battles. He didn’t hide his grief, frustration, or loneliness—he studied them. He wrote about the sting of loss, the weight of fatigue, and the tension between duty and despair. His writings weren’t about triumph; they were about endurance through self-honesty.
Epictetus, another Stoic, drew a sharp line between what we feel and what we do with it:
“Don’t let the force of the impression when it first hits you knock you off your feet. Just say to it, ‘Hold on a moment. Let me see what you are.’”
That pause—the space between feeling and reaction—is the birthplace of real strength.
Stoicism isn’t about being cold; it’s about staying conscious. It’s the difference between freezing out your emotions and learning to sit with them. Marcus didn’t aim to feel less—he aimed to feel wisely.
Too many men confuse detachment with control. They believe emotional distance makes them stronger, but what it really makes them is numb. And what you numb will eventually find its way out through anger, addiction, or collapse. Carl Jung warned that what remains unconscious will direct your life, and you’ll call it fate.
Unprocessed emotion doesn’t disappear—it goes underground. The pressure builds. On the surface, a man might look calm, successful, composed—but underneath, there’s a volcano forming. That’s why the “tough guy” eventually explodes: all that heat has nowhere to go.
Real Stoicism means releasing that pressure through awareness. It means acknowledging fear without collapsing into it. Feeling sadness without drowning in it. You can grieve and still lead, love and still protect, hurt and still move forward.
The man who can sit with his pain without trying to outdrink, outperform, or outfight it—that’s strength.
The goal was never to be unfeeling; it was to be unbroken.
Redefining Masculinity
James Baldwin said, “Nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Real courage isn’t avoiding pain—it’s sitting with it. A new masculinity values honesty, empathy, and vulnerability—not dominance. As Maxime Lagacé wrote, “A warrior is not about invulnerability; he’s about absolute vulnerability.”
When I finally sat in a therapist’s office and said out loud what I’d been trying to outrun for years, it didn’t make me weaker—it made me real.
The core virtues of mature masculinity:
Wisdom: Know your emotional landscape—you can’t lead what you refuse to face.
Courage: Face feelings instead of fleeing them.
Justice: Show up authentically in relationships.
Temperance: Respond rather than react.
These aren’t abstract ideals—they’re daily practices. Wisdom is learning your triggers. Courage is making eye contact when you want to look away. Justice is telling the truth about what you need. Temperance is breathing through anger instead of lashing out.
Practical Ways to Reclaim Emotional Strength
Expand your emotional vocabulary. Use an emotion wheel to name feelings accurately.
Check in with yourself. Notice what you feel throughout the day; awareness builds agency.
Journal daily. Like Marcus Aurelius, write not about your achievements, but your inner life.
Seek support. Therapy isn’t weakness—it’s training for emotional endurance.
Build safe connections. Surround yourself with people who can handle your truth.
The Real Work
True masculinity isn’t the absence of emotion—it’s the integration of it. A man who can name his fear without shame, grieve without collapsing, and love without losing himself—that’s strength.
Because the man who feels nothing can’t love anything—and that’s no kind of strength at all.
The man who feels deeply and chooses wisely isn’t weak—he’s free.
