"Fuck this shit."

I've been coaching for five years now.

One of the themes that I see continuously among the men and women that I coach is that coaching begins when they are emotionally in a bad place that they don't know how to fix.

Whether it's recovering from a broken relationship, dealing with the "not good enough" story, feeling socially anxious and needy about relationships, dealing with "retroactive jealously" about their partners' sexual past, dealing with porn addiction, or sorting out their career, and finding passion, meaning and purpose in life...

Whatever the thing is that a person is wanting to change, they had to feel enough emotional pain in that area first, before change could begin.

The important thing is you have to respond to that pain appropriately.

How do you respond to pain?

When your body feels physical pain, you stop and check it out.

When you feel enough physical pain, you go to the doctor.

When you feel severe physical pain, you head for the emergency room- because your brain is telling you that something is desperately wrong.

For some crazy reason, many of us treat emotional pain differently. When we feel emotional pain, many of us try to suppress or ignore it.

We think...

• Well, there's nothing really wrong with me.
• Emotions are weak. I don't want to be an emotional person, so I won't react to them.
• Besides... there's nothing I can really DO to change my emotional situation, right?

Wrong.

So, so, wrong.

The reptilian brain is very simple. Pain is a simple, clear motivational signal that something needs to change.

If you are feeling pain, the question is not "how do I ignore this?"

The question is-

What do I need to do?

Why repressing emotions hurts you

In my view, emotional repression is one of the worst problems in society today. Particularly among men- we feel that emotions are somehow bad, and that emotional pain should be carried silently.

If you had blood pouring down your arm, would you just take an aspirin and ignore it?

And yet, when we feel the exact same degree of emotional pain, most people simply medicate it and move on.

Alcohol, porn, Facebook, chocolate, anything that can release a few happy chemicals to offset the pain a bit- that will do just fine.

Here's the thing. Pain is good. In fact, it's absolutely critical.

Medicating and ignoring it will not solve your problems.

That pain is a critical decision point...

Do I want to keep suffering? Or do I want to change my world?

Creating change in your life

Emotional pain does not mean that you're broken.

It also doesn't mean that you're stuck and unable to move forward through your life challenges.

It just means its time to take responsibility for what you want, and begin creating it.

The first step is surprisingly easy...

Just surround yourself with people who can help.

• Need medical assistance? Find a good doctor.
• Feeling weak? Find a good strength coach.
• Want to climb Mount Everest? Find a good Sherpa.
• Want to improve your life? Find a good Life Coach.

At the men's self development group BROJO that Dan Munro and I co founded, I have heard men say so many times,

"I'm so glad I finally joined."

Oftentimes, men will lurk for years reading articles, listening to podcasts, watching videos, following our community Facebook forums, before they ever come to a meeting, or send an email to say hello.

Many times I've heard men re-tell the story of their first visit.

They drive nervously to Galbraith's Ale House - one of my favorite venues for running our BROJO weekly meetups in Auckland.

They sit in the parking lot, nervously, for 45 minutes... debating whether they should come in or just go home.

They'll sit there in their pool of sweat and inner turmoil, arguing with themselves as to whether they are ready to be honest, emotionally vulnerable, meet new people, risk being judged, face their own shame... and simply feel exposed on some level.

Our meetups are not 1/100th as challenging as they imagine.

We prefer that everyone work at their own pace on the things that they need to. We think of BROJO more like a dojo where you get to work on what's most important to you, with others guiding you - rather than like a boot camp where we drag you bloodied and bruised through the barbed wire.

We want you to grow, not suffer.

But these first-timers don't know that, and fear the worst. Their self-responsibility and desire to grow battles their fear, relentlessly...

At some point these men sitting in their car begin to get inwardly angry, because they can see their fear trying to talk them out of something that is probably going to be good for them.

They see fear, taking the reins of their life and holding them back yet once more.

Well, fuck you, fear.

In that moment, magic happens...

The pain of changing nothing, exceeds the fear of the unknown.

"Fuck this shit."

And they get out of the car and join the group.

How's your pain level?

If you're in a place of deep emotional pain, I want you to stop and immerse yourself in it for a moment.

Recognize these truths...

1. That emotional pain is there for an essential, important purpose,
2. It's telling you that things need to change.
3. You ignoring that is not going to make it go away.
4. You ignoring that is not going to make your life better.
5. You experiencing that pain does not mean there is anything at all that is wrong with you.

Not one thing.

It's simply means your brain wants you to take responsibility, and make your world a better place.

Here's the thing.

Some of those men never got out of their cars.

They stayed in the parking lot, until their fear had hammered their desire to grow into submission.

And they drove home, surrendering to their misery.

Which man are you?

It's entirely up to you.