The Invisible cape: when a boy becomes a man too soon

“You’re the man of the house now.”

This was the response I received from a couple different men, upon the first Sunday of my mother and I returning to church.

I had just turned 12 years old, which was followed by the passing of my father from cancer just one month after.

He had just turned 40.

Everything felt like a bit of a blur for me during the subsequent days/weeks of his transition.

I saw him as Superman.

Tough as any person I had ever come across before.

He was an athletic 6’4” 190 pound man who didn’t take shit from anyone.

While I loved him on one hand, I feared the hell out of him on the other.

My mother and him had separated a few years prior after he returned back home from a short stint of fighting in Afghanistan for the Army, via the Desert Storm War.

While I wasn’t aware of the magnitude of war back then, as I was only six years old when he first left the house to go abroad, I just knew he wasn’t around and that I deeply missed him.

When we did spend time together, I had the most fun watching sports games together, learning how to play dominoes (to which he always beat me), going fishing, or just eating some of his home cooked meals (he was an exceptional cook, with his specialities being pancakes, fried catfish, and lemon pound cake).

It wasn’t until 20 years later, shortly after the passing of my mother (rest in spirit), that I saw the magnitude of what those words uttered by the older male mentors at the church had internally created inside of me.

“Be strong for your mother, you’re the man of the house now.”

I remembered them vividly.

For nearly my whole life I had placed other people’s emotions above my own (in this case my mother).

I was carrying both her sadness, grief, and anger towards my pops, as I didn’t know or understand how to handle or process my own emotional experiences around it.

I withdrew anytime uncomfortable feelings would occur inside of me, for fear of what would happen if I truly allowed them to be fully felt or voiced externally.

I wore a face for most of my life as someone who was in control and always had everything together.

I was strong for my mother.

However that strength of being there for her, had unconsciously stunted my ability to truly be there for myself.

I attracted my mother in all of my prior intimate relationships (or at least a very close version to her).

And from that I continued the same pattern of withdrawing and suppressing my emotions when periods of discomfort would be felt.

I’d do so until the point where there would be so much underlying internal pressure within my body, that the only way to release the valve would come via an explosion.

Think of a brand new 2 liter Coca Cola bottle being shaken profusely and then being opened.

What would come out would be an uncontrollable tornado of verbal lashings or blame, that would inevitably create fear and separation between myself and whomever I was with.

Without knowing it, I was unconsciously playing out the same pattern that I saw my father model with my mother prior to his passing.

Now I want to be clear that I’m not saying this to put him down or bash him in any way, or to equally do the same to the men at the church who expressed what they did to me. 

No, I mention this to highlight an area that I’ve seen many men unknowingly struggle with as they continue to grow and mature into full on adulthood.

That being having the emotional and nervous system capacity of a 5-6 year old child.

No matter how much success they have, which may show up as:

-   Promotions after promotions within their professional careers

-   A beautiful and loving wife or intimate relationship with someone they love and care deeply for

-   Material success such as a nice house (or multiple) and cars they feel very proud of

-   And oftentimes a loving family with kids who they adore

While all of this is great, what ends up happening over time is that they feel like there’s an ever building amount of inner pressure that damn near feels suffocating to them.

Thoughts of “I’m not good enough” or imposter syndrome lurk within their minds (which they never communicate to anyone).

Either that or if they do communicate, it’s often them unloading their emotions onto their significant other, expecting them to be able to handle or hold whatever it is they’re sharing.

Simply put, they weren’t taught how to properly process emotions, leading to consistently being in a “reactive” over “responsive” state of both the mind and body.

Just like with anything, whichever state is more often tapped into, leads to the repetition of creating the same thing over and over and over again.

This is to no fault, as it’s how we as human beings are wired.

Whatever it is we do on a day-to-day basis, or how it is that we respond to emotional triggers when they arise on a time-to-time basis, ultimately ends up becoming a habit.

And when one has been responding a certain way for 5, 10, 15, 20+ years to a certain stimuli, then the brain becomes wired to elicit the same response when said stimuli reappears.

This is actually brilliant as it’s done purely for survival reasons.

However, when one feels stuck or in a constant state of exhaustion, frustration, overwhelm, or just “blah,” then oftentimes this is the actual area that needs to be examined.

This is where patterns of overconsuming social media, porn, drinking, smoking, food, or any other numbing action comes from. It comes from a sense of being unable to cope with something that feels uncomfortable.

Hear me out though.

This isn’t about judging oneself as bad or a horrible person, or not enough, or not being strong enough to handle what’s occurring (which can be a natural thought or reaction, oftentimes based on societal and parental conditioning that was received throughout one's childhood that has just graduated into adulthood).

This is about lovingly seeing what is true and being courageous enough to create something new.

Not from a place of fear or hate towards oneself, but from a place of love and gratitude for what’s possible or on the other side of moving towards what the heart craves (which is underneath all of the noise and constructs of the mind that one may perceive as being true, due to clenching onto beliefs that may not only serve them anymore, but also wasn’t truly theirs to begin with).

To put a button on top of this, what occurred for me 20 years later prior to that moment in church that I spoke of earlier, was a deep realization of all that I had been holding onto up until that moment.

My own pain as well as that of others whom I cared deeply for.

From having that awareness, I cried tears and truly processed and grieved the passing of my father, shortly after the passing of my mother (20 years later).

It came unexpectedly but words can’t even communicate how clear I was at that time of what was occurring.

I let out loads of anger in a healthy, non-sabotaging way.

That release of anger led to a sense of compassion for not only my dad and some of the struggles he had, but it also led to a deep sense of compassion for those men at the church who had passed over their guidance to me.

I realized they weren’t intentionally coming from a place of trying to stack even more pressure onto a young pre-teen kid who was already holding onto a lot, but they were just passing down what may have been communicated to them or their perception of how a boy was supposed to handle evolving into being both a young man and leader.

They may have not had a clue on how to communicate or express their emotions themselves, as they could’ve been only versed in holding things together and staying strong under any and all circumstances.

However, I’ve realized more than anything in my life that strength actually comes from authenticity, courage, and vulnerability.

Not from a new age crying or dumping all of one's problems onto another person, but from a depth of being real with oneself and honoring what needs to be felt, heard, or expressed in a moment in order to create a greater expansion and liberation of the heart.

As when that occurs, true freedom is a result.

Not freedom from a place of controlling oneself through suppression.

But freedom from allowing oneself the opportunity to slow down and look at the parts, actions, or behaviors that may be recreating the exact experiences that leads one to reducing their power to show up and create in the world.

This is the game in which I choose to play while here.

The game of living a healthy, intentional, and purposeful life, where my whole focus is anchored in the question  of “how can I show up in my highest and most authentically powerful version?”

As from that place, there is no such thing as a mountaintop or anything external that will “prove” I’ve made it.

It’s more of a dance and flow of evolving, learning, and moving towards something that is far greater than myself.

Turning something that has previously been one of the most painful experiences of my life, into my gift and the purpose of why I eat, live, breath, and exist on the planet today.

This is my offering, and I choose to genuinely only surround myself with men who deep down not only resonate with these words, but also desire to “be” the fullest and most powerful version of themselves too, knowing that 100% of said state comes from the internal and never the external world.

With Love,

Brandon

P.S. - I’m in the process of building a group for men. If this speaks to you, you may e-mail me directly at brandon@brandonbennett.com to be added to the waitlist.