We Say “I’m Fine” Even When We’re Not

There’s a question I ask men in this room more times than I can count, and so many of them can’t name what they feel. What are you feeling right now?

And every so often ~ quite a lot, actually ~ a man goes completely still.

Not because he’s avoiding it. Not because he’s being difficult, or shut down, or any of the things we assume. He goes still because he genuinely doesn’t know. He reaches for the answer the way you’d reach for a word sitting right on the tip of your tongue. And it’s not there. Just nothing.

If you’ve ever been asked how you feel and found a blank where the answer should be, this one’s for you.

If it’s more a general flatness you’re carrying rather than a total blank, I’ve written about that too ~ why so many men feel numb instead of sad covers the broader version of this. What follows here is the sharper, more specific version of it.

There’s Actually A Name For That Blank

Once you understand this, something inside you starts to make sense that maybe never has before.

The clinical word is alexithymia. I’m going to put that word straight back in its box, because the word isn’t the point. Here’s what it actually means in plain language for us blokes: it’s a difficulty identifying what you feel and putting it into words. That’s it.

It’s not an absence of feeling. That’s the crucial bit. The feelings are there. The wiring that translates the sensation in your chest into “I’m anxious” or “I’m grieving” or “I’m ashamed” ~ that wiring just never got properly built in a lot of us.

And here’s the part I want you to hear without any blame attached. For a lot of men, that’s not your fault. Social conditioning has a lot to do with it. Stop sooking. Get on with it. You know the drill.

Think about how a lot of us grew up. When you were a boy and you felt something big, did anyone sit with you and help you name it? Probably not. Or were you told to toughen up, stop crying, be a good lad, and get on with it?

If feelings were never named for you, never welcomed, never made safe, then the skill of naming them never got a chance to grow. You don’t lose what you never built. So you grow into a man who feels things deeply, often, but the only words available to him are the blunt ones.

That’s why so many of us reach for anger. “I’m not angry, I’m just frustrated.” Or numbness ~ sitting in the cave, shut down, nothing gets in, nothing gets out. Not because those are the only things we feel. Because those are the only words we’ve got. Anger’s loud enough to name itself. The quieter ones ~ the hurt, the fear, the loneliness ~ slip past unnamed.

I see it constantly. The guy who says “I’m just stressed” when what’s actually underneath is that he’s frightened ~ about money, about his marriage, about whether he matters. But frightened isn’t in the kit. Stressed is the word he’s allowed.

Learning To Name It Is A Skill ~ And Skills Can Be Built At Any Age

Here’s the good news, and I mean this genuinely. It’s not an easy journey ~ there’s no point pretending otherwise. But it’s not too late, and you’re not too far gone. I’ve watched men in their sixties learn to name what they fear for the first time in their lives. What a gift that is, to finally have the words for your own inside world.

A few real things you can actually do, not ten steps:

Start with the body, not the word.

When you can’t find the feeling, drop out of your head and into your body. Is your chest tight? Is your jaw clenched? Something heavy in your stomach? You don’t need the emotional word yet. Just find where it lives physically. The body always knows before the mind can say it.

Slow down enough to catch it.

Most of us feel something and immediately do something about it ~ fix it, drink it, work through it, push it down. Try this instead. Next time you feel something, before you act on it, sit with it for thirty seconds. See if a word floats up. It might not, at first. That noticing is the practice.

Build the vocabulary on purpose.

You can’t name what you don’t have words for. A lot of men are working with about four emotional words ~ fine, good, stressed, angry. That’s not enough to describe a whole human life. Next time, reach past the easy word. Is it actually worry? Overwhelm? Resentment? Shame? Check in. Let the word drop in.

Say it to someone safe. A feeling named only in your head is a start. But a feeling said out loud to one person you trust ~ that’s where the real shift happens. Doesn’t have to be a therapist. A mate. Your partner. One person.

One Thing, Not All Four

If you take just one thing from this, let it be this. Next time something moves in you and you don’t know what it is ~ don’t fix it, don’t even name it. Just stop. Thirty seconds. Check in with your body. Take a gentle breath into it. Feel where it sits, and be curious about it instead of afraid of it.

That’s how it begins. That’s how a man who’s spent his whole life feeling things he couldn’t name starts, slowly, to come home to himself.

If any of this is landing, the Head & Heart Guide was built for exactly this ~ for the man who wants the words but was never handed them. It’s free at spiritwarrior.au.

Feel it to heal it.

Be Gentle.