Why vulnerability matters for men’s mental health

Most men don’t struggle because they're weak. Instead, they may struggle because over the years, the pressure builds, and the feelings and emotions are managed or avoided. For many, vulnerability is seen as a weakness rather than a way of releasing pressure.

It is these kinds of subconscious beliefs and stories that men have traditionally held around their feelings, emotions and their vulnerability that can lead to so many of the mental health issues later in life. In this article, I’ll discuss how hypnotherapy can help reframe these internalised stories.

"I am a man."

Masculinity and emotional pressure

For many of us, that phrase carries a sense of pride and power. It evokes images of ancient warriors, honour in battle, the provider, the protector – a narrative that modern society may have outgrown, yet one many men still feel trapped within.

The problem with identifying as the hero in the story is that heroes are expected to take on the world alone. Armed with mythical strength and resilience, they battle evil, overcome every obstacle, slay dragons, and fight to the bitter end... all without help.

Real life isn’t quite like that. “No man is an island,” as they say, and the idea that there are ever any truly 'self-made' men is a myth. Everyone is helped along the way. Some men know they have blind spots and ask for it willingly, but many don’t, and are forced into submission by life, while some resist it until their very last breath.

The role of the ego

The ego is not something we are born with. It is constructed from the stories and narratives that our societies and cultures feed us from an early age. For many men, the words 'provider' and 'protector' resonate somewhere deep down inside, not because they are innate, but because they were installed early and reinforced often.

An idea born and developed in us as boys, through fairy tales, as we acted out as princes, played with our toy guns and swords, imagining saving the helpless princess in the tower from the dragon.

But the world moved on. The binary provider and protector archetype is not enough; it needs more rounded, fully formed, emotionally available and compassionate men, who open up, let people in, share their problems with others, ask for help, and who recognise there is great strength in vulnerability, not weakness.

The world doesn’t just need more men like this, but men themselves need it too, for their mental health and the mental health of brothers, because men are suffering in mid-life.

Understanding the stress bucket

After working with many male clients, I have seen pressure, overwhelm and stress develop into anger, insomnia, anxiety and the breaking down of their walls that they perceived to be indestructible.

It begins way back in the past, when they learn what those two words – 'provider' and 'protector' – mean. The hard walls of the stress bucket are built, and in the proceeding years, it is filled with the inability to say no, the taking on of more, the expectations of the world around them (usually just their own) and the ego holds in place this rigid ideal of who and what it is they thought being a man should mean.

They think their stress bucket has an infinite capacity; they can keep holding more, because they’ve done it before, and with no awareness or tools to release the pressure, they invariably reach capacity, where spillages and explosions become inevitable.

Why vulnerability can be a release valve

 Looking back, I can see how fortunate I was, although I would never have said that 12 years ago. I grew up as a sensitive boy alongside a strong-willed brother and an overbearing father who fought tooth and nail with one another. I often watched from the stairs as these seemingly strong men stood rigid in their ways – so rigid that, eventually, something was bound to break: themselves, or each other.

It took me years of self-judgement before finally seeing my sensitivity as a strength. As I grew up as a man in a world where sensitivity didn’t seem like such a prized commodity, I criticised myself and chastised my ability to feel everything, until I finally saw my male vulnerability as it really is, a superpower.

A friend once described me as “courageously vulnerable”, a title that, as a young man, wouldn’t have held value in my mind but now feels like the greatest compliment I could ever receive.

Vulnerability is a release valve. When we let down our walls, ask for help, admit that we don’t know everything, we give ourselves the permission to stop trying to hold onto everything, and we realise that being able to say ‘no’ not only feels incredibly freeing but has no reflection on our value as a human.

Vulnerability becomes a tap on the side of the stress bucket that allows you to release pressure at varying stages as we go through life, which avoids reaching max capacity and the ‘bursting of the dam’ effect that overfill can lead to.

How hypnotherapy may help reframe beliefs

The stories and beliefs that men have formed and shared about their masculinity, feelings, emotions, vulnerability and the danger that they represent to their self-image have all contributed to the filling of their stress buckets through life.

These stories and beliefs then become stored in our subconscious mind as little pieces of software or programs that shape how we perceive or respond to our reality, and because of where these programs are stored, they become autonomic.

These automatic reactions are based on previous experiences. In some cases, these can be useful, but when these programmed habits or behaviours start to have a detrimental or damaging impact on our lives and relationships, it’s time to take a look at whether they are serving us or not.

This is where hypnotherapy enters the story. The process of hypnosis allows us to gain direct access to the client’s subconscious mind, where all these programmed thoughts, beliefs and patterns of behaviour are stored.

As a hypnotherapist, we can then use suggestive scripts made with language that resonates with the client's own to ‘speak’ directly to their subconscious, permitting it to let go of outdated beliefs and offer it a new, more positive perception that could benefit the client’s life more positively.

The ripple effect of opening up

I worked with a 20-year-old man last year whose stress bucket was full. Through trying to hold everything together for everyone, eventually it rippled out. It was damaging relationships, burning those closest to him with his words. He felt out of control, and it was this time that he decided to ask for help.

After several hypnotherapy sessions, I was able to help him loosen the subconscious grip these stories had on him. In doing so, he began to let go of the belief that he always needed to have the answers, be the protector, and hold everything together. He allowed himself to ask for help and realised he could share his struggles with the people who loved him without being judged or seen as weak. Instead, he came to see that vulnerability could strengthen, rather than diminish, his sense of worth as a man.

Hypnotherapy helped to reframe his beliefs around vulnerability, and along with the sharing of a few of my own life experiences, he started to apply openness and vulnerability in his life; his relationships improved, and he even became someone that other men started opening up to and going to for help.

Asking for help

The funny thing is that most men are desperately seeking permission or a safe space to open into – a place where they won’t be judged – while they start strengthening a new muscle, one they have never really trained.

But this awareness is increasing more and more now, male-only retreats and men’s work are on the rise, and not a moment too soon, because people and the world need us to stop being boys and become the well-rounded men that we have it in us to be.

The future version of you is someone whose inner and outer worlds are fully aligned – a lighter, freer version of yourself. A man who is strong, compassionate, and calm. Someone who is kind, without ever being weak.