Avoidance, Drugs, Heartbreak and Dogs (ADHD – get it?) by Jordan Stephens is a fantastic, challenging, insightful and ultimately uplifting book about relationships, love, self-care, entitlement, masculinity, complications and the messiness of life.
Jordan Stephens covers the ways boys become men, how we develop our carapace against emotional vulnerability and our masking and avoidance toolkits.
We don’t learn these things on purpose but we DO learn them unconsciously…it takes consciousness and effort to change these behaviours and there’s no easy way to do them.
I was struck by this passage – quoted from the book – on fear and how it manifests itself within us and how we avoid it.
FEAR:
“But all men know if you get hit too hard, you must be stone never let the blood run out. Someone might see.
People get protective over things they care about.
People put their guard up.
Out of fear.
How then can our hearts be considered stone?
Perhaps they in fact feel so much that our teeth sharpen. “
It’s a brilliant, challenging, machine-gunning narrative journey with the goal of making all of us better, happier, more empathetic and caring men.
We all need this. Read it.
Also follow him on Instagram for insights and laughs @JordanFStephens
#masculinity #WhatMakesAMan #bettermasculinity #empathy #empathylightbulb #empathylightbulbs