Why Do Most Men Have Trouble Feeling & Expressing Their Emotions?

In several other articles I have pointed out that because of men's socialization patterns many are not only unable to express their emotions they are more seriously also unable to "feel" them.

So how can one express what one doesn't feel? Well simply, you can't!

So how does one kick start one's ability to feel one's inner emotional life?

This is indeed a tricky and hazardous challenge for psychotherapists, which I am not any longer for reasons which I will not venture into here. The main reason it is so challenging is that it is impossible to get inside another person and help them to start feeling something that they themselves are afraid to feel.

So there, I've given it away. You see the inability to feel is the result of a fear of feeling what is emerging from within. 

The fear can take many forms i.e. the fear of feeling weak and unmanly, the fear of something unfamiliar, the fear of feeling out of control, the fear of embarrassment, the fear of doing something foolish, the fear of making seemingly illogical or "emotional" decisions and so on.

All such fears come out of the socialization process I mentioned above. So one needs to "undo" this programming because that is exactly what it is.

Psychotherapy, as mentioned can take years to accomplish this and even then it is not always successful.

A more direct and effective way is to help the individual permanently release the early memories of socialization that generated the fears noted above.

When this is done correctly an amazing thing happens. The fully functional male, emotions and all, emerges.

You see, the process of helping an individual reconnect to their emotional life actually involves no learning at all. What it does require however is for that individual to be set free from the internal fear based limitations that handicap him and leave him feeling inadequate and ill equipped in the relationship arena.

It's much like the metaphor of a caterpillar transmuting into a butterfly. In the caterpillar the potential known as "butterfly" is waiting for expression.

In the same way in men who have been socially programmed to fear their emotional life there is a burning desire for a sense of completeness or wholeness that comes with reclaiming it.