Here's what I decided as I thought about the kind of counsellor that I want to be:

My job is not to be the hero, it's to awaken something heroic in front of me.

Here's what I learned this week about addiction: The urge to use is the urge to heal.

Men don't turn to porn, booze, drugs, overwork or gambling to wreck their life. Most of the time they just want a break from their nervous system always being in fight, flight, or freeze mode.

And then it wrecks your life.

We need more of all of these, and this month, here’s where I found them:

In that moment of panic, my instinct was to stomp on the brake and violently steer away from the skid. That reaction is precisely what sent us off the road.

I quickly learned what every winter driver eventually discovers: when you lose traction, you have to take your foot off the gas, resist the urge to slam the brakes, and steer into the skid.

Decades later, I see men handle deep personal loss and psychological trauma using that same dangerous initial instinct.

When a long-term relationship begins to drift, most men revert to what they know best: go big, solve the problem, and deliver a high-impact solution.

In my practice working with men, I see it constantly: the grand gesture is overused and overrated.

We usually talk about "quiet quitting" in the context of the workplace—an employee who checks out mentally, stops putting in extra effort, and simply does the absolute minimum to avoid getting fired.

But quiet quitting doesn't just happen at the office. It happens at the dinner table.

Men are conditioned to be fixers.

When a pipe leaks, you trace the line and patch the joint. When a customer flags an invoice issue, you reconcile the balance and clear the ticket. You identify the fault, apply the mechanics, and mark the problem resolved.

It’s an efficient mindset for the physical world—and a total disaster for long-term mental health.

When men think about the things that scare them, they usually list concrete, external threats: financial instability, career failure, or physical harm. But in my practice, the deepest, most pervasive fear I see in men is a different kind of HPV.

I’m talking about the fear of feeling Helpless, Powerless, and Vulnerable.

Physical injuries are visible, objective, and immediately understood. But when the injury happens to a man's mind, we treat it entirely differently. We call it an "illness."

An illness implies a personal vulnerability or a systemic sickness.

An injury, however, implies that a healthy system took a massive hit from an external force. If we started treating psychological trauma as an injury rather than a mental illness, the road to recovery would look completely different for men

We are conditioned to believe that a successful story only has one ending: the long, unbroken line that lasts until retirement or death.

Under this rigid framework, anything less than forever is automatically categorized as a failure.

But here is the reality we work on: a marriage or a job can end and still be completely successful.

When a man hits a wall in his life, his first instinct is rarely to book a session with a professional. Instead, he tries to handle it internally, or he does what most of us do: he leans on his immediate circle. He talks to his buddies over a beer, asks a trusted coworker, or confides in a family member.

Support from friends and family is invaluable for connection, but when it comes to executing a major life shift, you don't need a committee. You need someone who knows the way out.

There is a common trap that many men fall into as their long-term relationships mature. They work hard to build a life of safety, stability, and predictability. They focus on securing the home, managing the career, and showing up for the kids.

But often, in the pursuit of building a secure foundation, an unintended sacrifice is made: desire.

When a man sits across from me in the throes of divorce, or after selling his company, suddenly no longer needed at work or at home, he realizes he's spent a lifetime ignoring what he actually wants.

He built his entire identity around being needed by others and never asked: What do I want? What makes me feel alive?

You've been told your whole life: Don't be that guy who flies off the handle. Don't embarrass your family. Don't lose control. Push it down. Be safe.

You think you're doing the right thing. You're not being aggressive. You're not making scenes. You're not that guy who can't control his temper. You're being responsible, mature, safe.

But here's what's actually happening: You're trading anger for depression.

You're sacrificing too much for work. And deep down, you know it.

The boundary between work and life has disappeared, and you've let it happen.

None of this sacrifice will matter in the end.

You're carrying anxieties you won't share with your partner.

Whatever it is, you're keeping it to yourself. You don't want to burden her. You think you should be strong instead of vulnerable. After all, you tell yourself, we don't need both of us falling apart.

But here's what's actually happening:

Your silence isn't protecting your partner. It's creating distance.

Your relationship has become a logistics operation.

You and your partner coordinate schedules, manage kids' activities, discuss household repairs, plan vacations, and make decisions about a thousand practical things. You're busy together, but you're not actually connected.

When was the last time you had a real conversation?

Your partner had an affair. Or you did. And your world has shattered.

The betrayal feels absolute. The pain is excruciating. The questions are relentless: How could this happen? Why wasn't I enough? How could they do this to me? To us? To our family?

And underneath all those questions is the assumption that drives most of the pain: They turned away from me. They rejected me. They chose someone else because I wasn't good enough.

Your mind races with work-related thoughts when you're trying to sleep. You replay conversations, worry about upcoming presentations, or mentally solve technical problems. 

Sleep becomes elusive, and the exhaustion compounds the next day, making it harder to manage stress and emotions.

You hold yourself to impossibly high standards. Your code must be flawless, your work output exceptional, your ideas brilliant. Any mistake feels catastrophic, triggering shame and self-criticism. 

Perfectionism masquerades as excellence and ambition, and it’s a trap that limits your growth, damages your mental health, and paradoxically reduces your effectiveness.