The Best Teachers Are Your Own Mistakes: How to Get over Past Mistakes
Mistakes are seldom pleasant when we make them. Discover in this article how to start seeing your mistakes as teachers instead of failures.
BEFORE YOU CONTINUE: This is by no means an article and episode about victimizing or blaming other genders. The aim here is simply to bring awareness about masculinity, men’s health, and the struggles men face. To focus on the needs of one gender, so that men and women can all become better at being there for one another. There is also an upcoming episode where we will focus on women.
Having said that, let us turn on the spotlight and shine some light on men to bring awareness about men’s issues.
Despite appearances and what is often portrayed, being a man is not easy. Just like women, men face countless struggles too. Often, however, they are not taken seriously and their issues are not much talked about.
If you would ask people about what types of struggles men face more than women, most would go blank even though there are some major problems that occur overwhelmingly amongst men.
Global statistics on addictive behaviors from a 2014 status report reported that an estimated 4.9% of the world’s adult population (that is, 240 million people) suffer from alcohol use disorder. Among this population, 7.8% are men and 1.5% are women.
Likewise, an estimated 22.5% of adults all over the world (1 billion people) smoke tobacco products, with 32.0% being men and 7.0% being women.
Men abuse drugs and alcohol twice more frequently than women.
While there are many factors and speculations as to why men are at greater risk of abusing drugs and alcohol, teenage males are more likely to be exposed to drugs through their peer group than teenage girls.
Another factor may be that men talk less openly about their emotional wounds, and they could have turned to drugs to aid them as a coping mechanism.
Furthermore, men are more often exposed to media images of men drinking, leading many young and underage males to believe that drinking is not only safe but also appropriate behavior.
And of course, men are more likely to model their behavior after other men who drink or succumb to drinking when they feel peer pressure to keep up with other guys.
While there are other contributors, these are some of the reasons that have led to twice as many men being addicted to drugs and alcohol compared to women.
Note: If you’d like to learn more about alcohol use disorder, how to help someone who is struggling with it, or how to be there for yourself if you are battling with alcohol use disorder, do have a listen to the interview we did on The IPS Podcast with Scott Pinyard, head coach of This Naked Mind, about alcohol.
It is estimated that 150 million people worldwide are homeless.
And in most if not all countries, men are by far the majority among individuals experiencing homelessness.
The State of Homelessness: 2021 Edition found that 60% of all homeless people in America are male. In other countries like the UK, the Netherlands, Australia, etc., similar numbers are true.
Between 2018–2019, 84% of people reported to be sleeping on the streets in London were male while 16% were female. Amsterdam placed the percentage of homeless who were male at a high of 88%. And even in countries with a smaller gender gap, like Australia, men still account for over 50% of the general homeless population.
Gender, therefore, acts as both a symptom and a cause of homelessness.
Why are there so many more homelessness men than women? While the reasons are multi-layered, some of them include:
– Men are more likely to be made redundant and less likely to be re-employed than women, thus increasing their risk of falling into debt and losing their home.
– Another reason is that most veterans, particularly those returning from combat duty, are men. Veterans experience many complications related to mental health crises, job placements, broken families, and similar problems that lead to extreme situations such as homelessness or suicide.
– And to give a final reason, the vast majority of people in prison are men—as we have mentioned earlier. A report in 2018 by Prison Policy shows that formerly incarcerated people are almost 10 times more likely to become homeless than the general public.
Since prison takes people away from society often for extended periods, people who are released from prison struggle to transition back into society. Finding a stable job, learning a new skill, and finding a place to live are challenging.
These challenges can be so overwhelming that many people, in this case men, are overcome with no alternative but to live on the street.
Across the board, more men than women become the victims of violent crimes:
No matter which gender, violence is violence, and any victim should be taken seriously and receive support. Sadly enough, when compared to women, men receive less of both.
The result is that a vast number of men also do not report violence. Countless studies on why men do not report show the same findings: Men do not seek assistance because of what they describe as “societal obstacles against men and lack of support.”
Have a look at the video created by Mankind Initiative, a leading British charity supporting male victims of domestic abuse, showing how little violence towards men is taken seriously.
This needs to change. Yet, once again we are failing men by not taking violence and abuse towards men seriously.
From out of this whole list, this one might be the most well-known. Yet, that does not take away the shocking fact about how many men commit suicide.
Globally, suicide rates in men are just over twice as high as for women.
In 2017, the global suicide rate for women was 6.3 deaths per 100,000; for men, it was just over twice that figure at 13.9 per 100,000.
Because suicide carries a social stigma – and the fact that it is illegal in some countries – these figures could possibly be even higher.
While there are various reasons why someone takes their own life, mood disorders—with depression in particular—are widely recognized as among the foremost risk factors for suicide.
Reports show that 98% of those who died by suicide had a diagnosable mental disorder. Which also means, they could have been helped. Mental disorders, like depression, are treatable.
Since suicide has a stigma and since men in general have trouble talking about their feelings for fear of being judged and seen as weak, men often do not seek help for psychological problems.
Whereas women are likely to seek help for mental problems, men are absolute experts at pretending there is nothing wrong – even if they are dying inside.
Note: If you are currently struggling with suicide, or know someone who is, or if you simply want to educate yourself more about this topic, have a listen to the episode we did on The IPS Podcast with Mark Henick, a mental health advocate and suicide survivor, about suicide.
Again, this is not laid out to start a fight against women or anyone. This is simply to bring awareness and point out, in a more in-depth analysis, that men too struggle with some serious problems.
While each of the above-named problems requires a different solution, we can narrow the cause of the problem and the solution down to one simple thing:
Men need to start being more open about their feelings, emotions, and thoughts.
For that to happen, they need to truly feel like they can do this.
This is a change that requires both men and women to stand together to help men feel that they can be open about what is happening inside them—without feeling like they will be judged or seen as weak or less manly.
Here at The IPS Project, we want to help contribute to changing the narrative.
In this episode, we invited Sean Galla, founder of Men’s Group.
With more than ten years of experience holding men’s groups and men’s circles, Sean is the perfect person to talk about men, men’s health, masculinity, and how men can support one another better, as well as how women can be better at being there for men.
Hopefully, through these show notes, the resources provided
here, the interview with Sean Galla, and the announcement that there are places
like Men’s Group, we will add another drop in the ocean to reduce the occurrence
of the above problems that men have to face.
This for the sake of not only the men, but for the sake of
both men and women together.
With that, please enjoy this interview with the founder of
Men’s Group, Sean Galla.
MensGroup.com is a virtual men’s group, which makes it a lot more accessible for more people and makes it possible to hold these sessions frequently.
At Men’s Group, they match guys in a specific group based on similarities in their life stages, challenges, and goals.
As pointed out on the Men’s Group website, sharing common challenges and goals makes it easier for the men to relate to each other, connect, learn, move through challenging situations, and grow.
To learn more about Men’s Group and to try out a free session, check out the link below:
“It’s not this thing that’s out there – toxic masculinity; it’s just unhappy people do unhappy things.”
“I am trying my darndest to make men’s groups look cool. To spin the narrative from having conversations seen as weak or asking for support as weak, to identifying a challenge in life, finding a tool to help you with, like a men’s group, and then taking action on it is one of the most masculine things you can do.”
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