What does it mean to Be a Man. There is a question that sits at the center of my work with men, one that most of them have never been directly asked and have never given themselves permission to seriously consider:
What does it actually mean to be a man right now?
Not the version their father modeled. Not the version their culture is currently arguing about. Not the version that earns approval from a partner, or the version that gets nodded at by friends. What does they believe a man is – what does their version of manhood look, feel, and live like?
Most men I work with in my San Diego practice go quiet when that question lands. And that silence is telling. Because in the absence of a genuine, internally grounded answer, men tend to default to one of two things: they either perform the version of masculinity they were handed – stoic, self-sufficient, achievement-oriented, unshakeably in control – or they spend their energy anxiously trying to figure out what the people around them want men to be, and contorting themselves to fit it.
Neither of these is freedom. And neither, I’ve found, makes men happy.
The Double Bind of Modern Masculinity
The men who come to see me carry a particular kind of exhaustion. It’s not always the exhaustion of overwork, though many of them are overworked. It’s the exhaustion of navigating an impossible double bind.
On one side, the old masculine code – the one that said men are providers, protectors, and problem-solvers; that showing emotion is weakness; that needing help is a form of failure; that the internal life is largely irrelevant so long as you perform your function in the world. Many of the men I work with were raised in this code, explicitly or implicitly, by fathers who lived it themselves and knew no other way.
On the other side, a cultural moment that is asking men to be something quite different: emotionally available, sensitive, communicative, vulnerable. Partners want them to open up. Therapists tell them to feel their feelings. The message from much of contemporary culture is that traditional masculinity itself is the problem – that the stoic, strong, achievement-driven man is not something to emulate but something to move beyond.
The result, for many men, is profound confusion. They feel criticized for being who they were raised to be, and uncertain about who they are supposed to become. They are trying to hold two incompatible sets of expectations simultaneously, and they are failing – not because they are inadequate, but because the frame itself is broken.
What I offer these men is a third way.
Neither Old nor New – But Authentic
In my work with men, I’m not interested in replacing one set of rules with another. The goal is not to produce men who conform to a new, progressive template of masculinity any more than it was useful to produce men who conformed to the old one. Both approaches locate the standard of manhood outside the man himself, which is precisely the problem.
The work I do with men is about helping them discover and inhabit their own authentic version of masculinity – one that is grounded in their actual values, their genuine emotional experience, their specific history and temperament and relationships. One that doesn’t require them to perform anything for anyone.
This involves several things that most men have never been taught to do.
Healing the emotional wounds of boyhood.
Most of the men I work with carry wounds that were inflicted in their early years – by fathers who were absent, critical, or emotionally unavailable; by experiences of humiliation, failure, or rejection that no one helped them process; by the early adoption of a persona that kept them safe in their families but cut them off from themselves. These wounds don’t disappear with age. They go underground – and from underground, they drive behavior, shape relationships, and limit possibility.
Therapy creates a space – often the first such space a man has ever had – to actually look at these experiences, grieve them, and begin to integrate them. Not to wallow in the past, but to free the man from it.
Taking ownership of the shadow.
Carl Jung described the shadow as the repository of everything we have rejected, disowned, or refused to acknowledge in ourselves. For men conditioned by traditional masculinity, the shadow tends to be crowded with emotions: grief, fear, vulnerability, need, tenderness, shame. Because these were coded as unmanly in childhood, they were pushed down. But they don’t disappear. They show up sideways – as anger, as emotional unavailability, as self-destructive patterns, as a vague sense of emptiness that nothing seems to fill.
I challenge the men I work with to take ownership of their shadows – not to become their shadows, but to integrate them. To meet the parts of themselves they have spent decades avoiding, with curiosity and compassion rather than contempt. This is not soft work. It requires real courage. But it is the work that produces genuine change.
Discovering and living from personal mission.
One of the most consistent findings in my work with men is that a sense of purpose is not optional – it is foundational. Men who are not living from a genuine sense of personal mission tend to drift into busyness, distraction, or dissatisfaction, even when their external circumstances look enviable. The question “What am I here to do?” is not a philosophical indulgence. It is a practical necessity.
In my role as both therapist and Dharma Life Coach, I support men in clarifying this question – in excavating beneath the expectations and the “shoulds” to find out what actually matters to them, what they actually care about, what kind of man they actually want to be. And then in building a life that reflects that.
Men and Emotional Intelligence
Let me say something directly about emotion, because it is the area where I encounter the most resistance – and also the most transformative growth – in my work with men.
The traditional masculine code treats emotion, particularly what might be called “soft” emotions (grief, fear, longing, tenderness), as liabilities. Men learn early that these feelings are to be quickly converted into more acceptable forms – anger being the primary acceptable emotional expression for men – or suppressed entirely. The result is that many men arrive at adulthood with a stunted emotional vocabulary and a deeply habituated pattern of avoidance.
This creates problems everywhere. In intimate relationships, where partners need emotional presence and connection and cannot find it. In parenting, where children need emotional attunement from their fathers. In the man’s own interior life, where suppressed emotion finds other outlets – anxiety, physical tension, depression, substance use.
Emotional intelligence – the ability to identify, understand, and work thoughtfully with one’s emotional experience – is not a feminine quality. It is a human quality. And for men who develop it, the quality of every dimension of their lives improves: their relationships, their performance, their sense of aliveness, their capacity for genuine joy.
This is not about becoming someone you’re not. It is about becoming more fully who you are.
The Men’s Work That Changes Things
Many of the men I work with have carried their questions, their pain, their confusion for decades in isolation. The idea that therapy is an appropriate venue for this material is itself a hurdle – one that cultural conditioning has spent years reinforcing. Men don’t ask for help. Men figure it out on their own. Men push through.
What I find, consistently, is that when men finally do walk through the door – when they finally allow themselves to be seen in the fullness of their experience, without performing, without managing impressions, without needing to have it together – something releases. Not immediately, and not without discomfort. But there is a relief that comes with finally being honest about one’s inner life, finally examining what one has been carrying, finally receiving the kind of attuned, nonjudgmental presence that most men have never experienced before.
And from that place, genuine transformation becomes possible.
Are You Ready to Find Your Own Answer?
If you are a man who is tired of the double bind – tired of performing a version of yourself for an audience whose approval never quite satisfies – I would welcome the chance to work with you.
The question of what it means to be a man today doesn’t have a single answer. But it does have your answer. Finding it is some of the most important work a man can do.
I work with men individually, and I offer sessions in person in San Diego as well as via FaceTime and secure Zoom.
John Boesky, MFT, is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Dharma Life Coach, Master NLP Practitioner, and Certified Hypnotherapist based in San Diego, CA. He has specialized in men’s issues since 2004, offering a space where men can do the deep work of healing, growth, and authentic self-discovery.