Welcome, Mission, And Safety Notes

SPEAKER_05 0:04

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

I appreciate everyone being here. Thank you so much. This is the June 2026 monthly community conversation. Our topic this month is men's health. And my name is Jen. I'm a volunteer for Project Human. I've been with the organization for a little over a year and have just become very passionate about what Project Human does for the community and for people. These conversations are a monthly way for us to connect to the community, to come together and explore real topics that impact all of us in our mental states, in our emotional lives, and how we just build our overall well-being and to be human about it, which I love. Part of addressing the topic that we're going to talk about tonight with health, specifically for men, taking care of the guy in the mirror, is to acknowledge that health is not just what is in your body, it's also what's in your mind, what's in your heart, what's in your spirit, how you connect with others. And we want to cover all of that tonight. So disclaimers, always want to start that we are not medical professionals. This is a peer-to-peer advocacy organization. If you are in a crisis, please reach out to your local mental health resources, dial 911 for immediate assistance or for national suicide prevention. Please dial 988 and get the help that you need. By participating in this meeting, we appreciate you and you automatically are giving us permission to use any audio, video content for promotional purposes. Everyone is welcome to go on and off camera at will. Project Human, if you haven't heard about us, is a human-first focused nonprofit, one that bridges the gaps in mental and emotional health through communication, education, creativity, and community connection, like tonight. We are intentionally creating access points for folks that may not know what resources are at their fingertips so that they can approach saving and helping themselves in an approachable human way, knowing that they are supported by a community. Through these monthly calls, through our quarterly mental health days, through our podcast, and through the creative activities that we do as an organization, we bring our lived experiences, resources, education, and dialogue to the community. And our impact begins with this kind of conversation, this connection, this awareness. And so what we talk about is our opportunity to I have a little bit of an echo. Got it. Okay. I've got you on mute, Don. So so joining us today, uh, I just want to remind you that all that you feel that you uh go through that you experience as healing, um, this is part of our connection as humans. So thank you for being here. Um our topic, men's health, uh, is one that is, I think, close to any person that has a man in their life or to the men that are here on the call. Um when we think of men's health, uh, we might immediately think about going to the doctor, losing weight, checking your blood pressure, um, looking at your cholesterol, or maybe you want to exercise more. And those things matter. Um, but tonight we want to take a broader view of what health means and what it takes to help men stay healthy, uh, physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially. Um, not to be perfect, obviously, but to be able to show up for yourselves and for the people and things that matter the most to you. Um, so I don't want to be talking at our participants tonight. I want it to be a thoughtful driving discussion. So I've got a number of questions uh designed to just get your thoughts, your feelings, um, and kind of perspective share throughout the evening. Um there are no right answers, it's just what you think, and that is awesome. So please be willing, ready, and able to share your experiences,

What Men's Health Means Personally

SPEAKER_01 4:30

your ideas. Maybe you'll even um pick up a thing or two from somebody else on the call and uh start taking better care of yourself. So I'll start with the very obvious question of what does men's health mean to you? And I open this to everyone on the call, not just the men, but also our ladies joining us tonight. Feel free to come off mute and uh let us know the first thing that comes to mind.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

I'm gonna pause and let the gentleman speak first.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

Well, I guess I'll be the one to jump on the grenade first. Um, what does it mean to me? Well, it's been a big uh obviously a big year for me. So it's uh it's actually kind of cool. Um because of over a year ago, I was uh definitely not feeling so hot. You know, so definitely had to take uh take more control of my my well-being. I also had that shoulder replaced and that brought me down some. But uh since then, getting back in the gym and eating better and taking the right vitamins has helped out tremendously. Um I've lost 72 pounds since last July.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

Oh, congratulations.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

So thank you. Thank you. It feels awesome. Like I feel like myself again. Energy is back. I feel like I can do a bunch of stuff, so yeah. Um, men's health or just health in general is a bit more important this last year than it ever has been in the past. And I've always felt like I was pretty healthy in the past, but uh obviously it was not.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Awesome. Awesome. Uh Daniel or John, do you want to share? Uh oh, and I see we have O'Neil. Uh, do any of you want to share what men's health means to you? First thing that comes to mind.

SPEAKER_04 6:08

Uh well, I'll uh speak a little bit, I guess. Um I, as I know Jen knows, I had a heart attack at 32 years old. Um and that was a big turning point in my life, of course. Um come to find out now that it it wasn't an unhealthy lifestyle that led to that. It was a congenital defect, but nonetheless had to start taking a lot of better care of myself in the aftermath of that, and uh that involved, you know, a complete lifestyle change, change in diet, change in sleeping habits, change in exercise routine, as well as my mental health. I was going through a really stressful time at that time, uh, made a career change right before that, and you know, just had to kind of find my way through that. And the the big thing was was to prioritize myself through all of that, not my career, not anybody, just me, and uh focus on my physical health, my mental health, you know, and I lost a I lost a good bit of weight through that, and it's kind of you know, over the years it's kind of come and gone, but my health is better than it's ever been still, and you know, it feels good to be here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

And our new joiners, John uh and O'Neill, just to let you know, you gotta hit the unmute button before you talk.

SPEAKER_07 7:49

Hello.

SPEAKER_06 8:00

Oh, there you go. I got you.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Hi, John, thanks for joining us. Hi, O'Neil, thanks for joining us. Uh would you like to share uh just what comes to mind when you hear the the phrase men's health?

SPEAKER_07 8:13

Yes, um, I like to um piggyback on the gentleman's just nice said I five years ago I was um had pre diabetic, and um it was something that really hit me by surprise because uh, you know, I I try to exercise and try to eat right, but something that you you can't really control it was I found out was mainly in my DM DNA. My father had it, as well as his father had it. And um my physician, physician at the time, he said, well, you know, I'm gonna put you on a diet. And then it was, you know, of course, some days we don't eat correctly, and we we try to eat correctly. And um the job that I was working on that I'm and the position I was that I was um working at, it was very stressful. And um that was causing me to not sleep correctly, not have my eating proper meals. So um that was five years from a go, and I just I just turned it on full fast as I start exercising, eating right. I remember um I'm going in the office and the physician said, okay, you you're gonna still have to stop doing this, you're gonna you're gonna have to lose weight. And I think a year later, I made a she was saying I made a completely turnaround. She, her patients, all of our patients she had previously, I was one of them that really, really made a turnaround. When you say pre-diabetic, for us, my blood sugar, it went down for us. I lost weight. And um I just continue to do that, you know. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

That's a journey. And congratulations to you for pushing through that and to Daniel for rehabilitating yourself post-heart attack, and to John for rehabilitating yourself post-your shoulder injury and surgery. Uh O'Neal, do you want to share your perspective on what you think of when you hear the phrase men's health?

SPEAKER_06 10:32

I think for me, the hardest part is to get motivated and to get into the right routine. Um life throws so many curveballs at you and circumstances that pull you out of uh your own regimen. So for me, the hardest part of the thing is to get motivated and get out of my phone. A lot of cases I get into like a depression, which has been uh my hardest thing for uh I feel like for me I think the only thing is to just make the sacrifice of time to really take the strike struggle for this thing. Trying to pray and meditate every day. I got a gym membership now, so I'm really trying to have to go. I've had an ear infection for the last month or so. I've been finding these allergies that are pretty crazy myself. For the most part, I think I'm starting to read it. And I hope that uh after I'm over it, I think I can finally get motivated enough to keep on going.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

These are really thorough and wonderful answers. Each of you has touched on your physical health, your mental health, your emotional health. Uh, you've talked about needing to find a sense of intrinsic motivation within yourself in order to push you towards a healthier life, whether that be for your mind or your body or your spirit. And often in a conglomeration of doing all of these at once, even if maybe only one of these things feels like it's out of place at the moment, often they all are. Um when we talk about health, uh, we are thinking about our body, our mind, and our our heart or our spirit or that which connects us socially to other beings. Uh, we'll call it connection. Um, and it fluctuates in and out, up and down in these spaces, like constantly. So we focus more on one, we might be putting the other on a back burner and it'll come back to bite us. Um if we focus on uh taking care of our social outreach, maybe we're drinking too much and our body suffers. If we focus too much on our mind, maybe we're not doing as much for our body. And it's like a three-legged stool. If you cut one of the legs off, it's gonna teeter-totter and fall over. We have to think about holistically. Um, so I I think about um if we are weak in one area, and thank you. If we're weak in one area, like um we all talked about going to the gym. Um, you know, if your legs are weaker than your upper body, you're you're likely to fall over. If you have big arms but no chest or back, you're likely to have limited structural strength. Um same way as uh if we have mental challenges, it's hard to focus, it's hard to get motivated. If we have emotional challenges, it might be hard to get focused or motivated. Uh, and we just kind of fall out of balance. Um if if you all have ever experienced that, can I just get like a show of hands? I've done it. All right, that's a 100%. So don't feel like it's you, just you alone. It's literally all of the humans, and there are people in our community that have probably gone through something really similar to what you are going through or have gone through, and that gives you permission to reach out, make a social connection, uh, and reach out to the community and ask for support when you need it. So remember that you have us uh and that there are people that are going through it too. Um, let's start with talking about our bodies.

Movement That Actually Feels Good

SPEAKER_01 15:18

So, universally speaking, none of us is a spry little 20-year-old anymore. If anyone is joining us online and you're 20, I love it for you. Congratulations. Do everything while your body can. Uh as you get older, it gets harder. Your body lets you do so much when you're when you're young, all night rages, crazy hikes that no person in their right mind would do, bungee jumping, skydiving, all the crazy. But as we age through our 30s, our 40s, our 50s, 60s, and beyond, it's like that that bill comes due. Your body's like, hey, remember that time we were partying in our 20s? Let's feel that now. And the body remembers. We recover slower, we notice aches that we didn't used to have, sleep matters more, um, movement matters more. So uh you don't have to be a gym rat to engage in movement or building strength, you know, walking, biking, yard work, swimming, uh, lifting weights or playing sports, maybe taking the stairs instead of the elevator if you work in an office building, um, maybe parking your car like 10 parking spots further away to just get in those extra steps. These are all ways that we can encourage movement in our lives. Um, but I think that what people forget is that you should do what you enjoy doing. So I'd like to hear what uh you actually enjoy doing that's a physical activity uh and why you love it. So anybody, anybody want to share that?

SPEAKER_04 17:05

I will say that uh one of my favorite physical activities that I wish I did more of uh is riding my bicycle. I got really big into cycling after my uh heart troubles arose, and I found that to be an excellent form of exercise. It also was great for my mental health, just to get outside and and watch the world go by and just ride and explore, and it was it was it's been a big outlet for me that I whenever I get problems going on in my life and I need to just get out for a bit, it's a great way to do it. Just get on on my bike and ride, and before you know it, you've forgotten everything that was troubling you, and you're just focused on on the ride and where you're at and enjoying you know being outside. It's uh cycling has been excellent for me, and I wish I would do it more now. I've kind of gotten a little busy at work in the last bit, and uh haven't been you know as dedicated to cycling as I should be, but uh I'm looking to get back into it, you know. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Yeah, you were saying, John, go ahead.

SPEAKER_07 18:24

Yeah, oh I oh yeah. For me, I love playing basketball. Um it's something fun you can do without you knowing that you're exercising, and and you was talking about speaking of age, I think I'm pretty much uh what you might say the OG of the group, I'd be 63.

SPEAKER_03 18:44

Rodam. Looking you over 63.

SPEAKER_07 18:48

Yeah. And uh thank you. I remember my sons, like I say, I have two older sons, they got their family. And um, one way I used to always stay in shape was we used to always go to the park and um having two younger sons playing basketball. Now they're grown, they have their own lives. I try to get out and try to stay active as much if I as I can for it's like you say, doing something you love to do. Once you do something that you enjoy to do, you're not you're not really gonna think you're exercising because you enjoy what you're doing. So I say basketball is one of the things I really love doing.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Basketball and cycling are are great ways to get your mind off things, rhythmic, repetitive sounds of the ball hitting the ground, the pedal of the wheels, the sound of the wind in your ears.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

And what I loved about both of you guys was when you talked about it, you smiled, so you could tell that like even thinking about it makes you happy. So that's important.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Heck yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

So yeah, I uh I still love going to the gym. There's no doubt about that. That's that's been my my safe haven as of right now. If I can be outside and walk, like I'll put my headphones in. If I have a bad day, a miserable day, stressful day, whatever. Um, and Jen, you may know a little bit from what uh with my my stuff. I can put my headphones in, just put my music on and go for three miles, and all I'm doing is just enjoy the environment and my sounds. It's the most peaceful thing ever. Having loud music in my ear and nothing else. So I do enjoy that. Same in the gym. Have the headphones in when I'm in the gym. Don't talk to anybody. I'm there for me, nobody else. Um, can't really do what I what I love to do because I'm my shoulder, but I used to love just getting on the wrestling mat, going to wrestling practice, going scraping scratch rolling. That's all I want to do is roll and and scrap, but can't really do that anymore. My joints don't allow it, and uh my cardio might not be the greatest anymore either for that, though it's gotten better. But uh anything outdoors, really hiking, you know. I you just went to Zion, didn't you? Did you guys go out there?

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Yeah, I we did. We we hiked uh we hiked up in Zion just uh past weekends ago and um enjoyed a quite extensive hike.

SPEAKER_05 21:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Uh I think that um one of the things that you said, uh John is something that everyone should remember. If you like music at all, music plus activity, that pairing can turn the brain off and allow you to just be in the moment, be in the physical activity in a way that if there is not music, your mind might choose to race.

SPEAKER_05 21:40

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

And might detract from you being able to release yourself into that physical movement. So that's a definitely uh astute observation about amplifying your movements.

SPEAKER_05 21:54

Yeah, that's great.

Sleep, Shift Work, And Wind-Down Routines

SPEAKER_01 21:56

And I think that. In addition to the physical things that we do to move and get our blood pumping, we have to think about rest and what we do to recover, whether it's mentally or emotionally, but definitely physically. Sleep, I think recovery is harder as folks get older. Sleep can sometimes become harder to come by or to keep doing. Many people report waking up more times in the night whether to use the bathroom or just because their mind is busy as they age. So sleep becomes more and more valuable to us every year. I think I read a cool meme online: naps are wasted on the young. Tell my toddler self to enjoy those naps. Gosh darn it, you're gonna wish you had more. You know, things can look different depending on how well you slept last night. You know, life can be harder and stressful if you didn't sleep well, but you get that decent sleep, you're gonna wake up feeling like a different person. Um do any of you feel like you get enough sleep at night?

SPEAKER_07 23:20

Yes, you're right. Um I'm gonna fall asleep. Um, yes, you're right. The hours I work, matter of fact, I'm at work right now. Um, I'm working second share from 3 to 11:30. And usually time when I get off work, 11:30, I get home, shower by 12:30, 1 o'clock, I'm pretty much in bed. Usually time I sleep up until about 8, 9 o'clock. And I can I can tell when I don't get a good enough sleep. I just don't feel right. I don't, I'm not the same person than the person I am when I'm well rested, you know. So I and it's it's the hours that I'm pretty much working at my job. Usually um, like I said, I work second shelf, usually during the daytime. Um when I get home at night, it's it's late, and you know, and I know that's contribute to not getting enough sleep. Yes. So you you're right. You're correct.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Absolutely. And I don't know if uh other gentlemen on the call have had experience with different types of shift work. Folks who change from daytime hours to night hours, or maybe have a career change or a seniority change and suddenly lose the ability to choose their hours can suffer from the um multifaceted health neglect that comes with changing your sleep cycles?

SPEAKER_03 24:57

Military hours.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Military hours, yeah. Um all kinds of all kinds of shift work can can upset the body's clock and our ability to repair, to restore, to focus on ourselves with a clear head. Um, so I think uh I think I would ask, does anybody have like a tried and true trick or a go-to method or a ritual that they do that helps get them ready for bed that might help them stay in bed longer, that you want to share the secret O wise words with these uh these folks here?

SPEAKER_00 25:32

I just do something really boring. So, like I'll I'll read a book or I'll play like Seduco or some kind of math game, something that uh I can play, but I have to use my brain to think. And at some point, my brain goes, nah, this is enough, or I drop my phone on my face or something, and then and then I fall asleep. It's the only thing that really works is to really over overwork my brain to the point that it said, enough, this is boring. I I don't I don't want to do it anymore. And then I can sleep. Other than that, I will stay up till four or five in the morning, go to sleep for two hours and be up and do the same thing all over again.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Does anybody uh have one of those um like blue light cutoff things where you tell yourself I'm not gonna look at a screen for X number of minutes before bed?

SPEAKER_03 26:31

I I've tried that now for the last uh six months or so. I've been trying to do like a like a sleep hygiene thing because I don't get sleep at all. So I've definitely been looking at like a I actually was talking to a counselor about it, uh sleep hygiene, and that was one of the things was screen time after eight o'clock, just turn off all the you know, any don't get don't get stuck in TikTok or go down the wormhole. That's oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

I just deleted that.

SPEAKER_07 26:55

That is so true. Um, I don't mean to interrupt you. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 27:00

No, you're good. Go.

SPEAKER_07 27:01

Oh yeah, yeah, you're right. Like I say, the hours I get off of work, 11:30, and to myself, it's it's it's with me, it's just my body. I like I said just last night, got home, took a shower. Of course, I I have what you might call a wind down time. I have to just sit down for just 10 minutes and just let my body just relax. And then after that, I tell myself, hey, yeah, I mean it just it's just a clock, like you said, just goes on, goes off, and say, hey, it's time for you to get to bed. You know, don't fight it. Just go on the you know, go on, go to bed, you know, and usually losing you there, John.

SPEAKER_04 27:54

Yes, yes, uh, there you go, you're back.

SPEAKER_07 27:58

I say, yes, sometimes like if I don't listen to my body, and usually it's like a time clock that goes off and tell me, okay, one o'clock, one thirty, you need to be in bed. So I usually I don't even fight it, I just force myself to get in bed and just you know, pretty much lay down, and then eventually I go to sleep, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

O'Neill or Daniel?

SPEAKER_04 28:24

I was gonna say I I worked second shift before, and second shift was a lot of fun when I was younger, and the older I got, the harder it was. And the biggest thing I learned was you gotta go to bed. Otherwise, next thing you know, you're sleeping through your morning, you know, you're not getting anything done during the day, and you're just in the going to work and going to, you know, it's no fun at all. It's tough.

SPEAKER_06 28:50

You're right. Coke and cookies works for me, and if not, I do I just feast until I go into like a sugar coma.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

That's not true. You watch meme movies.

SPEAKER_06 29:04

Or I watch Adam Sandler movies.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

We yeah, we we call them meme movies.

SPEAKER_06 29:11

You just watch the same movie over and over again. Like as soon as it goes on, you just pass out.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

I think that's what Yolanda was saying. Like, your brain is like, I know this. This is a repetition thing, I'm done with it, we can go to bed. So the winding down, the disconnecting from blue lights, the taking a shower and going through a routine to get ready to decompress, to do something that's boring or repetitive until your brain relaxes and shuts down. These are all really important ways to make sure you get enough sleep. So the your body health, it matters. Um, and even if you take excellent care, you might have a great physical body, but it doesn't automatically mean that you have a healthy life. So we have to take care of our minds as well.

Stress, Ego, And Healthier Coping

SPEAKER_01 30:03

And let's take a minute to talk about what each of us do to keep our minds healthy. Um so mental and emotional well-being are often overwhelmed by things like stress, um, things that we can't control, uh, whether that's hereditary health issues or maybe your job situation, the hours you have to work. Um the world, Ken, like you had said, I think, O'Neill, the world throws curveballs. And for a lot of men, I've heard stress isn't so much the challenge as pretending as a man that you're not stressed, that you've got it all under control at all times, pretending that uh you don't need someone to talk to. You'll just manage and keep going, keep tracking. Exactly. I'm I'm seeing a lot of nods. So, you guys, you're carrying a lot of responsibility at at work, at home, financially, emotionally, you may be supporting others. Often you're doing all of this, not just for yourself, but for other people, for your friends, for your family, for your coworkers. If you are a business owner for your employees, you are shouldering this and trucking on. But you get so busy focusing on others that you stop checking in with yourself. So, my question is knowing that you're all aware of this and you don't obviously nobody likes pretending that everything's great. When life gets tough, what's your go-to way to cope? To process that.

SPEAKER_06 31:46

I think as a man, you tend to just deal with it on your own, in your own way, a lot of times. Because uh the manly thing to do is to just you know not talk about it and just keep on going. I try to stick to optimism and not be, you know, carrying a crutch around and that's at least the way I have been for a long time. But eventually it wears on to a point where you just can't do that anymore. You can't just keep going like that or shrugging it off and just keep on going, or being a man and saying, okay, you know, whatever. It is what it is, keep on going, stop being uh, you know, for lack of better terms, pussy or you know, this, that, and the other. It's an ego thing a lot of times. Right. So I feel like we've got to get past the ego trip and really focus on internalizing what it really is that's going on. I feel like we don't even really know what the hell's going on. So we just keep on trying to keep going, trying to keep on fighting because we're like warriors. At least some of us are like me. I've always been a warrior, I've always been a fighter, I've always been this tough guy going to the gym and hit hitting the weight against the bots, I know martial arts, all these things. And so but it gets to the point to where life can be so hard that it will knock you down. But the fight, you keep on fighting, and you have to fight and and it's like what Rocky says, it's like you fight and then you keep on getting up, and it's not about I mean it's about the stress, it's not about what whatever it is. It's it's getting to the end and getting hit, and when you get down, you can get back up and get hit again, and get back up and get hit again. That's to me is the way I look at look at life. And some tools that I use are like meditation, I pray a lot, I try to keep strong in my own faith. I'm very spiritual, but not religious. And so I look for all religions and I coexist and I try to understand everyone's perspective. And the thing that I've noticed is a lot of people they're not mentally open enough to adapt to other people's ways of thinking and ways of doing it. So they keep on struggling with their own way of doing. And I feel like eventually we gotta open up to different ways. And I know I said a lot, but you know, I appreciate the opportunity to manage a little bit. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

It sounds like keeping pretending and keep going and just keep getting hit, get knocked down and get back up again, that can wear a lot on the spirit. Uh John, John or Daniel, do you uh empathize with what O'Neill was sharing? And would you like to share your go-to ways to cope when life gets tough?

SPEAKER_03 34:48

100%. I agree with what he's saying. Um, I think for the most part, most of us are raised to believe that we're we're we're fixers. And no matter what's uh whatever happens, we're gonna we're gonna take control of that and ride that lightning. You know, let the stress can't drive us, we just have to compartomize it. And uh that's where we all get uh get screwed up. It's like uh, I mean, I've done that for years, and that's I'm finally I've released that over the last what two years now, maybe well really the last year. I was trying to do so many things to fix other people's problems and solve their issues instead of focusing on me. And in the last years when I finally decided, okay, hold on, it's time to stop worrying about a particular individual and worrying about that situation and and fix me. And so the music was a big thing, obviously. I keep going back to music, but the music is is is my is my cure all. It's uh I mean I put those those things in, just listen to the words, and it it soothes me, it takes me to a place where I need to be. Yeah, it controls it all. It's uh it's I don't I don't worry about anybody else. I mean I can't say I don't worry about anybody else, I still worry about other people.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

But you don't focus on them before making sure your house is in order, right?

SPEAKER_03 35:59

Right. Like I'll I'll I'll make sure I'm I'm there for other people and do things for everybody else, but at the same time, I'm not gonna let it not let it jeopardize my well-being and my health anymore, like I have in the past. I've always put everybody and their families and their dogs before I put myself. And so now it's kind of like, okay, hold on, I need to be in that pecking order. So I I've really done a lot to to to step back and stop trying to be the fixer for everybody else. Give them wisdom and words of wisdom instead of doing all this all the work for them.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

That's amazing. John or Daniel?

SPEAKER_07 36:32

Yes, I mean uh what YouTube guys are saying, I tell you that's exactly what uh I I used to go through as a young man. Um, when he was saying, well, we we are taught like we're our gladiators are we're we're we fixed it. And uh I I was that guy as a young man, as a young family. Um I got married when I was 23. I had my first two kids when I was 21 and 22. So I was they looked to me, hey, you you you the man, you're the breadwinner. You have to go out and provide for your family. That's how you taught, that's how you raise. And then it's like you continue to do that, and you feel that um, hey, you you you you don't know that it's really hurting you when you don't, it seemed like you don't know how to turn it off. Now when once my kids was grown, I I was continuing to do that too, because it was it just I guess it was just in me. And then I found out just um found out that it was affecting my health, you know, being more stressed out when I don't have to be, you know. So you as a man, you gotta sit back and examine your surroundings. Like I say, I have a small circle. I it's not really too many people I can really go to. I mean, I'm involved in my church, I talk to my pastor, but um, I have a very small circle, and as men, we we have a tendency to, hey, I can work through it. I I don't need nobody to talk to. I we I can handle this situation, but at the end of the day, you it's really hurting yourself.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

Well, avoiding isolation, remembering that you need to put yourself in the pecking order, reflecting on your faith and stepping outside of the identity or role of the warrior, the provider, the doer, the fixer. Daniel, what can you add to this? Are there ways that you use to cope?

Nature, Grief, And Emotional Permission

SPEAKER_04 38:45

Well, uh, as far as coping goes, yeah, um, definitely. So a big thing for me to cope with whenever the stress starts to get to be too much, I run away from it in a way. I like to get outside, I go fishing, I go for a hike, I do something to get away from everything and try to get my mind clear. And while I say yeah, run away from it in a way, there's a quote that I think of from a musician that I like, and he talked a lot about a lake that was near where I grew up that he would go fishing on, and people would say to him, You go there to escape reality, and he thought about it and he said, No, I go there to get to reality and get away from these problems that I invent. And so it is your escape in a way, but it's also a way for you to ground yourself and reset and kind of reassess where you're at and what you're going through, clear your head and formulate a plan, or maybe evaluate things and say, you know, all right, maybe this isn't as big of a problem as I thought it was, or or whatever. You know, it's a way to kind of separate yourself if you have any kind of an outlet. For me, like I said, fishing, hiking, something outdoors that doesn't necessarily ring true to everybody, but everybody I'm sure has some kind of an outlet they can go to and kind of stop and think and clear their mind and reset so that they can approach that from a more even space rather than letting distress dictate their steps forward.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Go ahead, Yolanda. Hey, so uh I know I'm a lady, I get it. Um, but I am my father's oldest son because he only had girls. Um, and so I had a front row seat uh to watching my dad, who is a blue-collar worker, who said work and money always came first. Um, not being able to go to like games and do things with us growing up, um being stressed. And uh what we did is when he was stressed, we would work on a new car. So we we rebuilt old uh classic and vintage cars, and then we resold them. That was like his thing, which became mine and my sister's thing. Um and so every time he wanted to work on a car, we knew something was going on, but like neither of my parents were very big on emotional shares or figuring things out. It was kind of like there's a problem, we'll deal with it, everyone else shut up. And that's just how it always was. And so I got married, had children, all that stuff, and my dad and my mom were still pretty much the same way. And um my dad got sick. And to me and my sister, he was only sick for a small amount of time. Come to find out he'd been hiding it for a really long time. And by the time we found out, we lost him like less than a month later. And before he died, though, um I was blessed to be there. He got saved by a friend of his that we stopped by and saw on the way to take him home to be with his family. And I remember him telling me how and you have to remember, like I was raised as his son, so he had been on me constantly about uh my work ethic and going to work and making sure all the things in my household are met, you know. Um even though I'm, you know, not my husband, me, you know. So and so he was always on me about money and about this and about that and about my hours and my paycheck, just always. And he told me on basically on his deathbed that he wished he would have listened to me and understood it was more about the time and spending time together and doing stuff together, and the money wasn't that important, all the things weren't that important. And at that time, my son was in uh middle school, and uh my son is my oldest out of four. Um, and I always took time away from my girls, from my son to have a conversation, to tell him it was okay to cry, to tell him that it was normal to regulate things. Because I didn't get that, and I understand that most men don't get that. Most men don't get to be emotionally vulnerable, they don't get to be mentally vulnerable. Uh the only time they get some vulnerability is the physicality when they're like, hey, I need to work out, I need to do people understand the the idea of a man being strong physically, but mentally or emotionally, it's uh it's not the norm. And so I didn't want that from my son. I I let him know that no matter what, we could always have a conversation, he can always have a hug, he can always cry if he needed to. And it wasn't a big thing, he could do that with his. Dad as well. And even my husband, you know, we're 25 years in, and he's still not comfortable to cry in front of me or anything, but he he does talk more. Sorry, I'm getting emotional. But um so yeah, he um he does have the conversations more often now. He does have a sense of vulnerability now, but that's taken years upon years upon years of being like, it's okay, nothing you can do is gonna make me bail, nothing you can do is gonna make me look at you less than you're a human being first. And I think that's a big thing when it comes to health of men and women, is like when we view each other as human beings, because then everybody's mental health matters, then everybody's emotional health matters, spiritual health, physical health. And once we start looking at people like human beings, you start realizing that there's so many gaps that we've been missing for each other. And it's really sad, I think, as a mom of boys and girls, to see the way the world treats them differently. And, you know, we treat our girls like, oh, it's okay, you're crying, come here, darling. But our boys were like, suck it up, get back to work, go do your thing. And it's like, absolutely not, come here, come here. Like, I love you. It's okay, cry that, then go get back to work. Like so I do the same thing to my girls. Okay, okay, now go do what you're supposed to be doing.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

Like, is that a bullet wound? Rub some dirt on it, drink out of the hose, military, be profane.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Let's go out the door in the wound.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

So, so Yolanda touches on something that we're actually going to spend uh a lot of time talking about next month in July monthly community conversation, which is uh about breaking ourselves free of the roles uh and identities that we have that have been either instilled in us by others or that we've taken on and identified with ourselves. Um it doesn't get talked about enough. We are programmed by our surroundings, by expectations of our social constructs, um, to be uh to be believing that that men are providers, men are the warriors, the problem solvers, that they're the ones that are breadwinning, that they are taking care of their family, they're the rock. And you can be those things and also be a human with feelings and struggles and the need for support and connection and someone to talk to and someone to vent to and get perspective from. And that requires you to have a community, a support group. John, you called it your circle. And as we get older, I think all of us have experienced those circles can get small and tight, but they get stronger. And the the longer someone's in your circle, the less likely they're gonna leave it uh after a long, long time. And those become uh dependent social constructs that that we were rely on. Um one of the things that uh seems to be common among men uh is that uh friendships can get harder to maintain as life gets busier. Maybe there are more and more demands in the family or at work or with life. Um maybe the people that you're trying to be friends with have too many demands with their lives and don't want to take time out for nurturing buddies and bromances. Um, these are these are essential pieces of the human social connection that um the glorified god of busyness needs to let go and let us have back.

Friendship, Trust, And Protecting Peace

SPEAKER_01 47:41

Um and I think it's harder for men to maintain friendships as they get older, um, but I'd like to get the perspective of those on the on the call. Gentlemen, do you find maintaining or building new friendships to be harder as as you've gotten older? And um, if not, how are you doing it and what makes it stick?

SPEAKER_03 48:08

I I don't think so. I mean, I guess uh when you're younger, you you worry about those things. You worry about having all the friends, you worry about being you know part of something as I'm older. If my friends are around, or if I've got friends, we're hanging out, we're doing stuff. If not, I'm not sweating it, I'm not worried about it, I don't let it bother me anymore. I'm not part of a clique anymore. I don't need to be part of a clique anymore. Um I mean, I'm in my house, my dogs, that's it right now. You know, peace and quiet. I don't need to satisfy anybody else. Right. Friends are gonna be there. If your friends are your friends, they're gonna be there 10 years. You see them again for the first time, it's like you saw them yesterday.

SPEAKER_07 48:45

Right. Yes, and that that is how I mean they're up. That is so true what John was saying. I'm at age, like I say, it's like we're not in high school. I mean, I I I have a very small circle. If a circle, like with me, is work, I go to the gym home, you know, um, I have my grandkids this past weekend, I I spend time with them, I take them to the movies, drop them off to their parents on, you know, I'm bike home, for it's like John was saying, friends on my job. Yeah, they're they're friends on my job, for it's leaving work, going and having a drink, or hanging out. Uh-uh, that's not me. Um that's past me. I I I enjoy peace. I mean, like not saying that it's not peace, but that's this is not my kind of peace, you know.

SPEAKER_01 49:46

So you have you have some social connections and you control that, it sounds like um, and that you have a small circle, but you're okay with that, and you have no problem making friends, but you've got some friends and they're good friends. Uh O'Neill or Daniel, do you feel like it's hard to build or maintain friendships as you get older?

SPEAKER_06 50:08

Um plus when you're programmed a certain way, I feel like for you know for men becomes harder to trust other than to really uh consider a friend, right? Like there's different levels of people that are gonna be considered a friend or family, uh for me uh I I always have trust issues when it comes to building friendship. So that's the struggle that I have for struggle. So for me, peace of mind is just solo to not even entertain sort of things. Right. I have friends from like high school and things like that that I keep in touch with over the years. Right. I mean, I have family and you know, different groups of different people, but for the most part, like close knit friends that I see every day and things like that. Not really, like not not like that.

SPEAKER_01 51:14

And it might be the need to find social groups that have shared interests as a foundation and maybe ease your way into creating um acquaintances uh with people who uh share interests, which is just a matter of I guess uh finding the right time or finding the right group or um it making yourself vulnerable to create a new relationship, to to endeavor to create a connection. Uh Daniel, uh your thoughts?

SPEAKER_04 51:50

Um kind of going along with the theme there of what the other guys are saying, I I think as I've gotten older, it's just more I value the quality of friendship rather than the quantity of friends. Um, so my my circle is in where I live now, it's very, very small. It's mostly just guys I work with, you know, we'll hang out some, but it's really more when I go home two states away. That's where I see my long, you know, term friends or whatever. Don't really feel like I need to have a lot of people around. I'm around a lot of people at work, and then I outside of that, you know, I have a very small group that I occasionally get together with, and other than that. It's I'm I'm happy to just have my peace in quiet for the most part.

SPEAKER_01 52:35

I'm hearing I'm hearing a little bit of a recurring theme of I love my small circle, but I need my peace and my quiet. And it sounds like that's maybe the the big message tonight is navigating your health requires some time to reset. And that might be play with your dogs, go home and just put on some music, go for a bike ride, hit the gym with your headphones on, maybe um journal or read a book that uh is helping you guide your mind in ways that you might not naturally think of. But these enriching activities are all meant to bring peace in an otherwise rather stressful surrounding environment, and that it seems that each of the men that have joined us tonight value that peace.

SPEAKER_03 53:31

I think we were younger, I think we all went too hard.

SPEAKER_01 53:33

We all maybe maybe so. Maybe we went a little aggressive.

SPEAKER_03 53:40

100%. I know I did. That's my father falling apart now.

SPEAKER_01 53:45

So you you all have have kind of opened my eyes on what's important to men in my world. Um, and I I want to take that with me. I know peace is important to me as a woman. Um it's so neat to see the parallels across sexes in what's valuable to us. Um looking at our our time right now, I want to kind of wrap the conversation.

Closing Reflections And How To Volunteer

SPEAKER_01 54:12

We've talked about our body health, our physical health. We've talked about the health of our minds, our emotions, and we've talked about our social and connective health. Um, in different ways, we are all finding balance in these three spaces. Um, and they're never equal. So, whatever one is strongest for you right now, think about that. And whichever part of that uh could use a little bit more attention. Maybe you need a little bit more time to spend with your mind, maybe you need a little bit more time to spend with your body. What's going to bring you that peace and that balance? Just reflect on that for a minute, you know? Take care of your body uh enough to keep doing the things that you love to do. Take care of your mind enough to enjoy the life that you're building around you or that you have labored very hard to build around you. And stay connected to your circle, to your people, to your dogs, to the ones that you care about. Stay connected to make the journey worthwhile. And you don't have to do all of it at once, every day, every minute. Just taking one extra next step. That's enough. And uh, you know, spend some time thinking about your health. So, from the lens of Project Human, thank you all so much for being on the call and sharing your thoughts and perspective with us. Uh, for folks joining us online um via the recording on YouTube. Thanks for joining us. We're so glad you could be here and we hope you could take something away from tonight's conversation. As a reminder to all participants, Project Human is a peer-driven nonprofit. We are human for human. We are always looking for volunteers who want to reach out and help other humans, connect with other humans, and build a wonderful community. If you would like to be a volunteer to help us expand the mission to benefit and reach more people in the community, reach out if you feel called upon to be part of something meaningful, reach out. We would love to have you. Uh, you can visit our website. It is www.phinc-ing.org. That's think, Project Human Inc. thinking, a new way of thinking about life. Thank you for being part of this conversation. Like I said earlier next month, we're going to be talking about freedom and transformation in honor of our nation's 250th anniversary. We're going to be talking about personal identities, the names, symbols, and roles that we all adopt for ourselves and the boundaries that we need to put up in order to um release ourselves from those and live a more peaceful life. Your voice matters, your health matters, and you matter. Thank you all so much for being here. Have a good night.

SPEAKER_03 57:14

Thank you. You too.

SPEAKER_01 57:15

Very easy for coming. Thank you all. Bye for now. Good night. Good night. Get sleep. Get sleep.

SPEAKER_00 57:31

Awesome. Bye, guys.