There's a reason society is often shocked when a man suddenly ends his own life, harms his partner, or destroys his entire family in an unexpected act. A week ago, local media released suicide statistics, and everyone was asking the same question:
“What is wrong with our men?”
But here’s the truth we don’t want to face: most men are
experts at appearing perfectly fine while internally falling apart. A
kinkless front. A polished shield. A carefully curated identity held together
with silence, pressure, and unprocessed emotion.
I know this life very well. My own journey into
self-awareness didn't start with a meditation retreat, a therapist’s office, or
some significant turning point. It started as a confused, introverted boy,
spending most of his free time alone, reading the Bible back and forth. Not
once, not twice, but three times by age 12, hoping the world would begin to
make sense. It didn’t. What I read and what I saw people doing were two
different gospels.
At my home, silence was the default way of communicating. My
parents rarely explained anything. You learned about life through
experience—girl-boy relationships, sex, friendships, conflicts—then faced
punishment later if your actions didn’t match the unspoken rules.
And when the cane eventually retired, I became a self-taught
human, learning from books (some questionable), friends (worse), and trial and
error (disastrous). But even during those chaotic years, I felt something
inside me—a conflict, a war, like there was an angel on one shoulder and a
demon on the other.
Later, I learned the fancy names:
- Id
– the raw “I want it now” impulse
- Superego
– the strict moral judge yelling “Be perfect!”
- Ego
– the poor middle manager trying to keep everyone sane
And then something bigger: Awareness. Presence. Eckhart Tolle’s
“observer behind your thoughts.”
This article explores how these forces shape your habits,
emotional life, and identity. But more importantly, it’s about how becoming
aware gives you your power back.
Let’s dive into the three truths that transformed my
understanding of myself and the men and women I coach.
We’re Born With An Inner War We Don’t Understand (Id,
Superego & Ego)
Most people assume they are “one personality,” but inside us
are three competing forces fighting for control.
The Id — The Hungry Child
The Id is the part of you that
seeks immediate pleasure: behaviors like late-night eating, sexual urges,
impulsive spending, anger episodes, blaming others, and giving in to cravings
may need attention. While common, these actions can have serious consequences
when they happen often or get out of control.
You don’t negotiate with the Id. It is primitive,
instinctive, irrational. Some of it is inherited—yes, your parents and
grandparents passed down more than just their height and cheekbones.
The Superego — The Holy Elder
On the other end is the
Superego: Your moral voice is shaped by influences such as religion, family
rules, cultural expectations, and feelings like guilt and shame, as well as the
inner voice that says ‘shoulds’ and ‘you’re better than this’. Recognizing
these sources can help you understand your values and guide your actions with
kindness and self-compassion.
My superego is the reason I returned extra change to a
shopkeeper. It’s the reason I couldn’t gossip even when it was juicy. It’s the
reason lying felt like a sin requiring fasting and repentance. The Superego
is helpful—but also rigid, punishing, and exhausting.
The Ego — The Middle Manager
Ah, the Ego. Constantly overworked and seldom appreciated,
it stays internally stressed. Freud’s Ego tries to mediate between the Id and
the Superego so you can function in society. But Eckhart Tolle’s Ego? That one
creates stories.
- “I am
successful.” “I am a failure.” “I am the victim.” “I am smarter.” “I am
behind.”
It reacts before it reflects. It compares, blames,
complains, fights to be right, and attaches itself to roles—parent, boss,
victim, hero, martyr.
And when these three forces collide? That’s when people
break.
Defense Mechanisms: How the Ego Protects Itself
This war leads to all the defense mechanisms we see daily:
1.
Projection — Joshua’s Accusations That
Weren’t About Martha
Joshua was the guy everyone
thought was “protective.” You know the type—always asking, “Who were you
with?” or “Why didn’t you pick up?” On the surface, it looked like
he was guarding his relationship with Martha. But beneath that armor was a man
terrified of facing something inside himself.
See, Joshua had unprocessed desires—temptations he didn’t know how to deal
with. He flirted emotionally with women at work, entertained inappropriate
thoughts, and hated himself for it. So instead of dealing with the discomfort
of his desires, he projected them onto Martha.
“I feel guilty… but it must be
her fault.”
One day, he even demanded to check
her phone, scrolling like a detective looking for evidence that didn’t exist.
Martha stood there, confused, hurt, and wondering what she had done wrong. But
she wasn’t the problem. Joshua was looking at his own shadow and didn’t realize
it was his.
2.
Denial — Mark, the “Functional” Alcoholic
Mark was the life of the
office—charming, funny, always with a big smile on Monday mornings. He’d joke, “If
coffee doesn’t fix it, whisky will!” We laughed, but his wife wasn’t
laughing.
Every night, he “took the edge
off.” Every morning, he told himself it wasn’t that bad: he hadn’t lost his
job, he still showed up, and he wasn’t drinking in the morning. Others were
worse.
“I’m fine,” he’d say, even when he
slurred through the sentence.
Denial is powerful because it lets
us put off responsibility. Mark wasn’t an evil man—he was a scared one.
Admitting the truth felt too heavy, too shameful, too real. So he built a
fortress of denial and lived inside it, unaware that it was slowly falling
apart around him.
3.
Reaction Formation — Toby’s Crusade
Against Politicians
Toby was the loudest critic at
every social gathering. “Politicians are thieves!” “They’re corrupt, greedy,
immoral!” “How can anyone respect them?” He’d go on and on, red-faced, fist in
the air. But here’s what nobody knew:
Deep down, Toby secretly longed
for everything he claimed to hate. The power. The influence. The money. The
recognition. His attacks on politicians were actually expressions of his own
hidden desire. Instead of admitting, “I want that life,” he swung to the
opposite extreme—hating with the same intensity as his longing. That’s reaction
formation: the louder the hate, the deeper the hidden want.
4.
Regression — When Grown Adults Turn Into
Children
We’ve all seen it— a boss throwing
a tantrum over a late report, a partner going silent for hours because they’re
upset and don’t know how to express it, or a friend slamming doors, storming
out, or curling up and crying like a wounded child. Under pressure, the adult
vanishes and the child reappears—the one who never learned how to handle big
emotions. Regression is the mind’s way of saying:
“I’m overwhelmed. I’m going
back to what I know.” It’s not immaturity; it is unhealed pain borrowing
the body of a grown person.
5.
Rationalization — Martha’s Endless
Explanations
Martha wasn’t a bad person, but
accountability wasn’t her favorite sport. If she gossiped, it was because “they
deserved it.” If she were caught lying, she’d say, “I was protecting your
feelings.” If she took something that wasn’t hers, she’d insist, “Rich people
never feel the loss.” Her explanations came so quickly and smoothly, you’d
think she trained for the Olympics of Excuses.
Rationalization is a clever ego
trick: Lie to yourself convincingly enough, and you never have to change. Martha
wasn’t trying to be deceitful. She was avoiding guilt—because guilt forces us
to confront the truth.
6.
Sublimation — Turning Pain into Power
(The Runners’ Edition)
If you’ve ever joined a running
group, you understand what I mean. You’ll encounter: the newly divorced guy
running as if he’s trying to leave his past on the pavement; the woman who
survived heartbreak and now completes 10K before breakfast; the quiet man whose
grief only shows in the number of marathons he signs up for; and the people who
run because if they stop, their emotions might catch up. Sublimation is one of
the healthiest defense mechanisms. It transforms emotional fire into movement,
discipline, and purpose. You don’t run from pain. You run through
it.
7.
Repression — Amy’s Forgotten Wound
Amy was warm and gentle yet
distant. She found it hard to trust people—especially men—but she couldn’t
explain why. Relationships felt unsafe. Touch made her flinch. Commitment
caused her anxiety. One day in therapy, bits of her story started to emerge. Not
clearly—just fragments, shadows, and sensations. She couldn’t remember the
incident, but her body remembered everything.
Repression protects us when we’re
too young or too fragile to process trauma. But the cost is high:
The memory hides, but its effects stay. Amy wasn’t broken—she was carrying a
story buried so deep it had no words.
These seven mechanisms protect the
Ego—but they also imprison us.
Awareness Is the Only Real Escape (Tolle’s Presence)
Freud explained the conflict,
but Tolle provided the escape hatch: the Aware Self. The part of you
that can step back and observe: an Id impulse without acting on it, a Superego
judgment without collapsing, and an Ego story without believing it. This
is where emotional freedom lives.
Awareness isn't about fixing yourself; it’s
about seeing yourself clearly. It’s the moment you realize: “This anger is not
me; it’s my Id.” “This guilt isn't truth; it’s my Superego.” “This insecurity
is my Ego’s story, not reality.” Awareness disrupts the automatic habits that
trap us in cycles of shame, fear, comparison, and self-sabotage.
Real change begins the moment a man becomes aware. Awareness
doesn’t magically fix everything—no lightning bolt, no instant
transformation—but it opens the door. It’s the first moment a man stops
running and finally says, “Wait, something inside me is speaking. Let me
listen.”
I once worked with a man named Brian—a strong, quiet
provider type. The kind of man everyone admired, yet no one truly knew. For
years, he lived on autopilot. Quick-tempered. Defensive. Silent withdrawals. He
thought these were normal, “just who I am.”
One day, after a tough work session where he caught himself
snapping at his colleagues, he sat back and whispered, almost surprised by his
own words: “It’s not them. It’s me. Something in me is reacting.” That
moment—that tiny moment of awareness—was the beginning of liberation.
Because here is the truth: You can't change what you
can’t see. But once you see it, you can never unsee it.
And this is where Presence comes into play. Presence
is the skill to watch your thoughts without getting caught up in them. It’s the
calm inner space where you see: the trigger rising, the judgment forming, the
comparison sneaking in, the irritation tightening your chest, the argument your
ego is eager to win, the pain body awakening, craving drama. When a man becomes
present, something powerful happens: he stops being the puppet and becomes the
observer.
The moment Brian learned to sit with his triggers—just
watching them without reacting—he told me,
“It feels like I’m watching my old self trying to take over… and I get to
choose.”
That choice is freedom.
And when a man reaches this place—this quiet inner
stillness—he notices something remarkable: His anger is not him. His fear is
not him. His defensiveness is not him. His trauma responses are not him. His
ego’s story about being “right,” “strong,” “untouchable,” “in control” is not
him.
Presence separates a man from the Ego’s lies. Awareness
untangles him from his conditioning. And in that separation, he discovers his
true strength. Because the truth is: What saves men’s lives is not silence. Not
shame. Not pretending to be strong and not carrying the weight alone.
What saves men is the courage to see themselves clearly.
To pause. To breathe. To witness their inner world without collapsing into it. That
is liberation. That is the path forward. And that is where fundamental
transformation begins.
You Cannot Heal Until You Face Your Story—Not the Story
Ego Created.
The Ego loves storytelling. It
relies on: Roles, Titles, Trauma, Pain, Praise, and Comparison. In fact,
comparison is its favorite activity. The Ego doesn’t care whether it makes you
feel superior or inferior; either way, it becomes stronger. But here’s the real
trap: the Ego attaches your identity to your story.
Are you the strong one, the
victim, the misunderstood, the achiever, the one who never catches a break, or
the one who must always be right? These identities may feel real — but they are
prisons.
Awareness helps you step outside the narrative and
ask: “Is this who I am or who my ego told me to be?”
And that marks the start of healing. That’s when boundaries
become natural. That’s when emotional maturity begins. That’s when presence replaces
pain. That’s when habits shift from survival to transformation.
Conclusion — The Work Begins With Awareness
Men are not breaking because they are weak. Women are not
overwhelmed because they are emotional. People are breaking because they have
never been taught to listen to themselves.
Your Id has needs. Your Superego has expectations. Your Ego
has wounds.
But your Aware Self, that is where peace lives. If you take
one thing from this: You cannot heal what you refuse to see. Awareness is
the doorway.
Call to Action
Start today. Choose one moment this week when you feel
triggered—anger, guilt, defensiveness, comparison—and pause. Ask: Is this my
Id? Is this my Superego? Is this my Ego reacting? What does my aware self see?
This simple habit could transform your emotional life more than any
motivational quote ever will.
Comments
Post a Comment