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Ok Guys clean up the beercans and put away the videogames. Fathers day is over.
Lol, ever notice how as men, young or old, we tend to respond to direct communication that pushes aside assumptions, feelings, or being lead by moods to do what is right, as we respond to a trusted authority? We respond to what is clear, even though at the time we might not "feel" like it.
HHH you know I prescribed to AoM and get the newsletters. As I have been allways told and taught as a child, most of our issues, feelings, motivations, strengths, well...everything was in our head and had to do with our perception.
So as a child finding myself in the place of thinking on my own, but also sensing not everything that surrounded me was right on, I turned to education of the grey matter between my ears as the only real means of dealing with the world around me.
As I also was active as any kid, doing the boy stuff like hiking into the woods until I had just enough time to get home before it got dark, if I could find my way...Climbing to the top of the tree i was told i would get killed doing, you know, challanging myself..became a part of that process of using our minds.
One of the best things I have gotten in my life is the realization of how I accually could visualize and make a plan for the future. Before that, it was just doing what was expected, and feeling out of control and aimless. When I started to and beleived in a plan, I started to make sense and life became much clearer naturally.
Then of course when I read this in the Old Testement, Moses had written, "Without a vision the people perish", well I understood it much more easily than before. To bad it took till I was 16 to realize I could control my life, and it wasn't till I was in my early thirtys that I read the scripture, and realized, "Hey, God doesn't want me to be a mindless robot either, He wants me to have plans and execute them"
I got the Aom newsletter this week, and it had another switch of manliness, provide.. I was very intere4sted in this one as it relates outside of getting a paycheck into the bigger sort of provisions. It was also an great read full of good info I suggest men read it.
But here is thing that made me just have to post to the mens thread about, the difference in mens brains, chemistry, and makeup. As you might have known, I have seen more than few chemical imbalances/dependancy issues that have effected the people I loved, and to not share this tidbit of insight an info would have been just wrong.
I suggest any of the guys here, who have been wondering and looking for a way for them to understand what is going on with thier feelings, emotions, and life, to read the Man switch articles and the one about providing specifically, its not about working and life being a grind where you pull in a paycheck alone, its much more.
One of the footnotes from The Aom article had this article about Dopamine, the left, brain, women and men. from a Psychocology Today Blog, about evolutionary traits which struck me as another distinction in the chemcal mix we all have between our ears as natures fantastic natural battery, and as men how and why we are so different.
I hope it helps others as it helped me to understand more also.
Hey guys, new reader here. I have been posting on the SAA portion of the site and was told to check this thread out. You all are doing great work here so I'm going to keep reading.
Surf and BX, look at it like this, How often does Dad get to really use that hottub Mom insisted they get installed for him? His complete set of tools for woodworking, the nice office chair and desk?
We are allways running around doin stuff and don't take the time for ourselves. when I am not engrossed in someone elses thread I have been following I do come here and read the Aom site also, but sometimes I don't have the time, and i should, like all of us guys, take/make the time.
Geez if my kids were not all grown up and my wife passed on I would not have the time for socializing outside of work anyways lol.
Yeah we are guys,, grunt grunt, oomph oomph, razzel-frazzle-raz-a-ret.
Seriuosly though you guys can say of post whatever you want here also. questions, topics of interest, observations and comments. Its for all us guys, not just for bigmouths like me Lol.
Let'er fly boyz
Me 56 Former BS Widowed 5-17-09 --married 25 years. 4 children DS-35 previous marriage--18-22 DGrandSons 6 and 4 Me former BS DD-29 with DGDs 5 and 1yr DSs 26 and 23 Teilhard de Chardin..“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” ...Sounds about right to me.
Just came over to ask... what happened to AndyM's thread? I couldn't find it and hadn't seen an update this week.
Me: 30 Him: 39 Together 5 years Married the very best man in the world 04/06/2013 after being common law for too long. I'm a lucky woman. 7 Cats - Viscount Ashley of Leftfield, Pawkie Petunia, The Timinator, Leo the Lionheart, Fruit Snack, Cloud, and Barret And our very lucky pony, Starbucks
Me again! Could someone look in on Unhappybs over on SAA?
Dunno, Surfer. Just read through 11 pages and got to the end and...well, been there before but, using the same rationale as he did (his kids), I took a different path. The thing is, when you're pissed off at the world for where you're at, you don't tend to listen to too much advice.
It looked like the folks there gave him a good run, though. Hope he gets motivated.
Here is something I have been interested in for awhile. I think it is worthy of the Mans thread because this article is about men and adultry, but I believe wholeheartedly there is so much nessesary information here for general health issues that men should look into this Dr. and his science. Here is a short excerpt from his site Here
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When the brain works right, you work right. When the brain is troubled, you generally experience trouble in your relationships, work, or within yourself. Since the brain is well recognized as the organ of behavior, it makes sense that brain problems, such as Alzheimer's disease, attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia or brain trauma is likely to decrease a person's effectiveness in life. Your success in life is associated with how well your brain works. This principle leads to an important paradigmatic shift: if you see someone who's "not right" then it may not be "them" or their "personality", it may not even be their upbringing or environment (directly) but in the here and now it's a matter of their brain not working properly. WHY it's not working properly is a question not easily answered by saying he or she has a personality disorder, but the **big triumph** comes when people begin to say not "what's the matter with YOU?" but "What's the matter with your BRAIN?" when someone's behaving poorly.
The brain is the most complicated organ in the universe. There is nothing as complex as the human brain. Nothing. It is estimated that we have 100 billion neurons or nerve cells and trillions of supportive brain cells called glial cells. Each neuron is connected to other neurons by up to 40,000 individual connections between cells. You have more connections in your brain than there are stars in the universe. Also, even though your brain is only about two percent of your body's weight, it uses twenty five to thirty percent of the calories you consume. Your brain is the major energy consumer in the body.________________________________________________
Phychiatry does not look at the brain and the activity but still prescibes medication to alter our behavior. Its like killing a fly with a sledgehammer. Much of phyciatry is practiced the same as it was in Abe lincolns time and they are the only phyicians who don't look at the organ they treat.
For me its too much guesswork, and it doesn't have to be. Dr Amen has been on PBS and other shows explaining the science of SPECT scans and he also has a book with some really good information anyone would find helpful. I bought and read the book, and ya know what? My brain said it made sense.
Now here is the article about men and adultry issues
Here _________________________________________________
Brains Acting Badly: A New Twist on an Old Question
Faced with the recent surge of sex scandals, I have found myself holding back, not wanting to comment. They happen all the time, but somehow this season seems different, worse,� begins the article I wrote for the Huffington Post last week, on June 8, 2011.
�The ex-governor of California had his family torn apart by an affair he had a decade ago; the IMF leader was arrested for an alleged assault on a hotel maid; Senator John Edwards was recently indicted on cover-up charges related to his affair; and now married congressman Anthony Weiner admits to tweeting his genitals!
�Why are so many men acting badly? The easy answer is to just say that these men are high-testosterone-driven cheaters who choose to make bad decisions. They should be divorced, scorned and ridiculed. They should just say no and stop being so stupid, we think.
�But as a neuroscientist who has scanned tens of thousands of patients� brains over the last 20 years, many of whom were sex addicts, I know the brain tells a different story.�
Below is the rest of the article, in total.
There is an area in the front part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. It is also known as the executive brain because it acts like a boss at work. It is involved in forethought, judgment, impulse control, organization and planning. When there are problems in this part of the brain, men in particular are excitement-seeking and prone to exhibit poor judgment. And what is more exciting than illicit sex or tweeting your genitals?
I was on the �Dr. Phil� show last year for a feature we did on compulsive cheaters. I did a brain SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) scan on Jose, who had cheated on his wife eight times in the four years they were together. His brain showed very low activity in his prefrontal cortex. He also had a brain injury pattern from playing football and mixed martial art fighting. From seeing his own scan, Jose developed brain envy and wanted a better brain. He did not want to be divorced and have his daughter raised by someone else. He did everything I asked.
Cheaters often experience the pain of rejection from their behavior and, with enough pain, can become motivated to change. Jose changed his habits, improved his nutrition, took some simple supplements to boost brain function and has not cheated on his wife for over a year. His follow-up brain scan also looked dramatically better. As we changed his brain, we also changed his life.
So what do we do with all these cheating men? Should we yell at them, belittle them, scold and scorn them? Or should we scan their brains? I think we should start by looking at their brains. How would we ever know if it was just bad behavior or a brain acting badly unless we looked? Psychiatrists, whom these people come to see for help, are the only medical professionals who rarely look at the organ they treat. Psychiatrists still make diagnoses today as they did in 1841, when Abraham Lincoln was depressed: by talking to people and looking for symptom clusters. Imagine if a cardiologist or an orthopedic doctor acted that way!
If the cheating man�s brain is healthy, then he should just deal with the fallout of his poor judgment and learn to behave better. If, however, he has brain dysfunction (as is often the case), perhaps from a brain injury in the past (a barbell dropped on his head, for example), or other prefrontal cortex problems (such as ADHD), then getting a brain makeover with appropriate treatment is essential. Just making these men, who have real brain dysfunction, feel more guilt and shame will not help solve their problems.
Your brain controls everything you do and all the decisions you make. When the brain works correctly, you work correctly. When the brain is troubled, you are much more likely to make troubled decisions. Whenever human frailties are involved, think about the brain. In our experience, with a thoughtful approach, the brain can be better, which will ultimately be better for the whole family___________________________________
So what man here ever uses tools to get something done? On a car when it has a small stutter do you use a computer scanner of just replace the engine, or even settle for poor performance? Being a mechanic for many years I have seen enough Mechanics shotgun problems as the customers went from one place to the other getting the ECM replaced, when if the tech had experience with the model he would know it was a faulty sensor and find the root problem.
"The difference between a Mechanic and a Surgeon is a Mechanic washes his hands before he pees and a Surgeon does it after"
The medical profession is going to move to this science in the future, but I believe the practice of prescription drugs and the politics of thier sales will leave people over medicated and/or not properly diagnosed for years.
"The physical Body is the temple of our soul", and in that the brain plays the biggest part of how we run our lives, care for ourselve and others we love.
This guy is worth looking into. His Spect Scans tell the story we all know sometimes to be true
Because the prefrontal cortex is the area we use the most to make our decsions, it is nesesary for us to have a healthy one. As a man who knows he needs good tools to do do a effecient job, I want to keep mine healthy. If you look at the scans from drug addiction, and realize that the chemicals they abuse shortcuts the need to process problems and make good desicions, you can get an extreme view of how much thinking and reasoning they avoid. Just look at the scans the inactivy is shocking.
Corelate that with what happens in the mind of the walkaway Wayward, how the dopamine hits they get from running away from working on the issues thier brain must process to make good decisions, you can figure they are not using the prefrontal cortex either.
Depression is part of a lot of activity going on in our minds. Its sometimes nessesary when people have struggles and they don't know how to deal with them. Aside from drugs, others use different escapes to take off the pressure that if they worked through it, they would find the answer.
So enjoy this science and if you want a good informative read I suggest the book. The link below is to a gallery of SPECT scans done on different medical diagnoses. Take your pick, and if you want to know more about how the different parts of the brain work, His book does prety well explain it.
Me 56 Former BS Widowed 5-17-09 --married 25 years. 4 children DS-35 previous marriage--18-22 DGrandSons 6 and 4 Me former BS DD-29 with DGDs 5 and 1yr DSs 26 and 23 Teilhard de Chardin..“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” ...Sounds about right to me.
Thanks. He is a scientist and blogger on Psychology Today, and the whole development behind that statement - the controversy and reaction to it - has been fascinating to observe.
"An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field." - Niels Bohr
"Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons." - Michael Shermer
"Fair speech may hide a foul heart." - Samwise Gamgee LOTR
Building Your Resiliency Part III: Taking Control of Your Life
�We lost 13 pilots in six months. And in nearly every case, the worst pilots died by their own stupidity.�-Chuck Yeager
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Among test pilots, Chuck Yeager�s attitude towards pilots who �augered in� was universal. In The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe relates how test pilots loved to talk about flying at every chance, and how the discussion would inevitably turn to why the latest pilot to have perished in an accident had done himself in. It was always the pilot�s fault. Even if a piece of equipment had malfunctioned, the consensus was that the pilot should have double-checked it before taking off. Nearly every death was caused by pilot error, plain and simple.
To the average joe, this might seem like a callous attitude, but when you�re going to a funeral every other week, burying a guy who�s doing the same job as you, you have to believe that you�re in control of your life, 100%. Otherwise, you�re never going to get into that cockpit again.
These men had the �right stuff.� Their unshakable belief in their ability to control their destiny set them apart from other men. You may not be flying planes, but you too can stop being a victim, strap into the cockpit, and take control of your life.
Ownership. Responsibility. Action.
I don't know if it's a summer rash, or a corner turned in my own reasoning... but, as I watch people here sit and complain about the actions of their spouses, I find myself asking; "Great, so what are you doing?"
Taking control of your life begins with taking control of YOU.
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Feeling in Control: The Foundation of Your Resiliency
In the last part of our series, we discussed an experiment in which dogs who had been given electric shocks and no recourse to stop the pain �learned helplessness.�
It was the experience of not being in control that left them depressed and defeated and sapped their resiliency.
The need to feel in control in our lives cannot be overstated. In Stumbling on Happiness, Dr. Daniel Gilbert argues:
�Being effective-changing things, influencing things, making things happen-is one of the fundamental needs with which the human brain seem to be naturally endowed, and much of our behavior from infancy onward is simply an expression of this penchant for control�The fact is that human beings come into the world with a passion for control, they go out of the world the same way, and research suggests that if they lose their ability to control things at any point between their entrance and exit, they become unhappy, helpless, hopeless, and depressed. And occasionally dead.�
The dead part refers to a pair of studies done to test the link between feelings of control and health.
In the first study, the elderly residents of a nursing home were each given a houseplant and divided into two groups-the high control group and the low control group. The high control group was told that the plant�s care was in their hands while the plants in the low control group were taken care of by a staff member. The results at the end of the study were startling-30% of the members of the low control group had died, compared to only 15% of the members of the high control group.
A follow-up study garnered similar results. College students were paired with residents at another nursing home. One group of the elderly residents (the low control group) could not control when the students would come; the student would set the appointment date. The high control group was able to dictate when the students would visit. �After two months, the residents in the high control group were happier, healthier, more active, and taking fewer medications than those in the low control group.�
If feeling in control of a houseplant can prolong your life, imagine the effect that feeling in control of even bigger things can have on your happiness, confidence, and resiliency.
In marriage, you can control YOUR actions, or you can let your REACTIONS to your spouse's actions control you.
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Having an Internal vs. External Locus of Control
In the 1950′s, psychologist Julian Rotter theorized that much of human behavior can be explained by whether a person has an internal or external locus of control. Locus means �place� in Latin, so these categories denote whether a person is controlled by external or internal factors. Those with an external locus of control believe that their behavior is guided by fate, luck, and other external factors. Those with an internal locus of control believe that their behavior is guided by their own actions and decisions. People don�t fit into one extreme or the other, rather the two categories represent the opposite ends of a continuum.
Having an external or internal locus of control has a profound influence on behavior:
Those with an internal locus of control:
Are confident that they can be successful. Tend to be leaders (leading those with an external locus of control). Exhibit greater control over their behavior. Seek to learn as much as they can. Take personal responsibility for their actions. Deal with challenge and stress better. Use challenges to come out stronger than before. Thrive in the midst of change. Are less likely to submit to authority.
Those with an external locus of control:
Feel like they�re a victim. Are quick to blame everyone but themselves. Want to be led by others. Avoid responsibility. Are more prone to stress, anxiety, and depression
Those with an internal locus of control are achievement-oriented and more likely to find academic and professional success. Because they believe they�re in control of their destiny, they�re eager to tackle challenges, while those with an external locus of control are apt to say �Why bother? It doesn�t matter what I do anyway.�
Additionally, Dr. Siebert, author of the Resiliency Advantage, argues that �both sets of beliefs are self-validating and self-fulfilling. People who believe that their fate is under the control of outside forces act in ways that confirm their beliefs. People who know they can do things to make their life better act in ways to confirm their beliefs.�
There are online tests you can take (here and here) to get an idea of whether you have a more internal or external locus of control.
Change. Your. Beliefs.
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Stop Being a Victim and Take Control of Your Life
Men are more likely to have an internal locus of control than women, which perhaps explains why rhetoric about being the captains of our destiny has always deeply resonated with us. And I would personally argue that much of our current crisis in manhood can be traced to men shifting from that natural mode of behavior to handing control of their lives over to external forces. Everything today is not our fault but is rather the result of a disease, addiction, or chemical imbalance.
The good news is that while your upbringing shapes your locus of control, it is possible to change it and become more internal than external.
Rotter grounded his ideas about locus of control in something called �expectancy-value theory,� which says that a person�s likelihood of taking an action is dependent on how much the person values a particular outcome and how much the person believes that taking the action will produce that outcome.
To put it in simple terms, and I hope this will be seared in every man�s mind: We blame others and play the victim when we don�t believe that we can solve a problem ourselves.
Non-resilient men play the �if only� game. These are the guys who claim that they would be the men they want to be�. �If only I had more time to exercise.� If only my wife didn�t nag me so much.� �If only my boss would stop being such an a-hole.� Their happiness is put on hold as they wait for circumstances and people to change.
The truth is this: people aren�t going to change. And if your happiness is contingent on them doing so, you�ve just handed control of your life over to them. If you let your co-workers/friends/girlfriend �make� you feel a certain way, you�ve stopped being an active agent in your life, and become a victim.
The resilient man understands that the only thing he can control is himself. Only he can change his circumstances and only he can control how he reacts to adversity. Circumstances don�t dictate your life-you dictate your life. The resilient man waits for no one to solve his problems; he is always actively trying to solve them himself.
That's what the vets here realize about the adultery fiasco many of the victims who come here are in the middle of. Is that they are just wincing from the gut punch, get back in there and fight
Many folks have this misunderstanding about God and that He is all about accepting our weaknesses and feeling sorry for us, then when we finally grab ahold of our testicles ( interesting that's where the word testimony comes from, because they were required to grasp them when speaking in the courts), they decide all that understanding and forgiveness stuff was for wussies
God is a God of War. Spiritual warfare. "No weapon forged by man shall prosper against us"
Before I forget, I want to mention this story from "The road less traveled" by Scott Peck. He notes that he saw a patient , an older man, who came to him with a minor problem. As he asked him about his life, and history, he was astounded by what this man had been through, yet he lead a pretty normal life now and was healthy at 60 yrs old. Dr Peck saw him only a couple times, and the man was fine after. It blows the theory that what has happened to us dictates our future or character traits and that just because life craps on you you have to act like the specific type of crap that lands on you That's resilency, taking control, you dictate your future.
"God hates a coward" a friend of mine used to say at the poker table. I wonder though, if He just seems to bless the fighters in life and we can appreciate that more as men.
As stated before, He is aGod of spiritual Warfare, he is just waiting for us to take our place in the ranks, and "A smoking flax he will not quench" means he we heal you and restore you because he needs His soldiers
So like every bruised reed, their comes a point where ya take control of your life and make it everything you want,take no prisoners, give no quarter to the negative thoughts of failure. You can stop and ponder over losses when your dead. Gods got that covered too
Me 56 Former BS Widowed 5-17-09 --married 25 years. 4 children DS-35 previous marriage--18-22 DGrandSons 6 and 4 Me former BS DD-29 with DGDs 5 and 1yr DSs 26 and 23 Teilhard de Chardin..“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” ...Sounds about right to me.
It's good I can help the other men to see the picture of the Godly man as a wimpy weakling is absolutely one of the biggest projections of crap Satan has managed to perpetuate upon society
Just posting here helps me. For as men we are "To be as Iron sharpening Iron" not Wet noodles stuck together in a pot.
Also the popular paranoia that goes around about how science goes against God just makes me laugh
Many of the greatest scientists have been believers
The propaganda that states to believe in God you must reject science just must really tick God off.
I am sure God wants us to take control of our life through knowledge and to reject knowledge,(science), would be to reject Him, for science reveals Him.
The fact that He has omni-science,(all-knowledge) does not mean he wants us to stand by and ask for a messiah to come and do our work for us
One of the greatest revealations I ever experienced was watching the movie "Tommy" and a line from the song "I'm free"
" If I told what it takes to reach the highest high You'd laugh and say nothings that simple But it's been told you many times before, messiahs pointing to the door, And no one has the guts to leave the Temple
I'm free. I'm free and freedom tastes of reality"
We cannot only change our life and this world God expects us to, and has given us the tools to do so
I am biased, as I thought you would do a great job either way.
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Miracles. Events with astronomical odds of occurring, like oxygen turning into gold. I've longed to witness such an event, and yet I neglect that in human coupling, millions upon millions of cells compete to create life, for generation after generation until, finally, your mother loves a man, Edward Blake, the Comedian, a man she has every reason to hate, and out of that contradiction, against unfathomable odds, it's you - only you - that emerged. To distill so specific a form, from all that chaos. It's like turning air into gold. A miracle.
From the smallest mistakes, miracles are born.
I have several mistakes... and the temptation to let them be regrets is often a heavy weight to bear. Yet, given the chance to unravel one mistake would utterly destroy the results of adaptations to that mistake.
What might that life be like? It's mind-bending, like the idea of Schr�dinger's cat. Are there several threads going forward from each decision, each unseen to the other?
Fact of the matter is, whatever I am now, and whatever I will be 10 years from now, both rely on failures and successes which were unfathomable until faced.
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We can never see past the choices we don't understand.
Looking back on the memory of The dance we shared 'neath the stars alone For a moment all the world was right How could I have known that you'd ever say goodbye
And now I'm glad I didn't know The way it all would end the way it all would go Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain But I'd have had to miss the dance
Holding you I held everything For a moment wasn't I a king But if I'd only known how the king would fall Hey who's to say you know I might have changed it all
And now I'm glad I didn't know The way it all would end the way it all would go Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain But I'd have had to miss the dance
Yes my life is better left to chance I could have missed the pain but I'd have had to miss the dance
"An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field." - Niels Bohr
"Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons." - Michael Shermer
"Fair speech may hide a foul heart." - Samwise Gamgee LOTR
Research by Jennifer Bosson, Joseph Vandello (both psychology professors at the University of South Florida) and colleagues has tested the role of threatening men's masculinity in aggression.
According to these researchers, men's masculinity is something that is elusive (it must be earned) and tenuous (it must continually be proven). Put differently, men can easily lose their sense of masculinity and, in turn, when it is challenged, they respond to restore it. One prominent way males try to restore their masculinity is through aggression.
So how do these researchers challenge men's masculinity?
Some studies have had men complete a bogus test of "male knowledge." They are then either given positive or negative feedback (which would be the masculinity challenge) about how well they did. Other studies have had men tie either a rope, or braid her (the masculinity threat), while others have had them use feminine smelling hand lotion.
In response to these masculinity threatening tasks, men show heightened anxiety and thoughts of aggression. Interestingly, they also behave more aggressively, such as by choosing to hit a punching bag when given the option of that or a basketball task. Men who choose the punching task also punch harder and more often when their perceived masculinity is threatened. Further, such displays of aggression, when made public, have been found to reduce the anxiety men feel when doing these (perceived as) feminine tasks.
Interestingly, if men can affirm their masculinity (e.g., by saying "I am not gay") prior to being threatened, they do not display increased aggression.
These same studies (well many of them) did not find similar results for women.
A basic hope behind this research is that by making men more comfortable/secure with their masculinity, aggression could be reduced. After all, if the causes of aggression are not uncovered, aggression will never be alleviated.
And, stepping away from aggression, men perhaps in many cases don't do things they would otherwise enjoy for fear of being perceived as feminine. So, again, if ways can be found (except aggression) to solidify men's perceived masculinity, perhaps males can be "freed" psychologically to enjoy these things.
Or at the very least, maybe we can reach a point as a society where men don't feel weird holding their girlfriend or wife's purse.
How about holding her purse while she takes the baby to the car and you go thru the checkout buying diapers, tampons, and asking the hot young cashier for size X leggs panty hose in taupe please Yes I said taupe and I'm a man and no I'm not gay Feusha. Well I guess I am a man couldn't auter spell thatun rite
Keep up the posting! 
