A Man’s Ability to Love by Samuel Jones, MA, LPC 

When’s the last time you heard the phrase “I love you bro” mentioned between two men without suspicion or assumption about gender or sexual identity? As someone raised in an African American, two-parent home, I didn’t hear, understand, or express those words to another man without the connotation that there was some weakness attached. This is probably familiar for many of you who are reading this right now. 

Within the men’s mental health community, the idea of toxic masculinity is often connected to the lack of expressed love, misunderstood forms of accountability, and power-stripped idealistic manhood wrapped in years of struggling to understand what a man should be. With men being seen as mental compartmentalizers, and from birth, drilled with messages of “being good for nothing”, it’s no wonder men are challenged with what it takes to be compassionate, yet strong; to be concerned and yet opinionated, and conversational and not neglectful. So how do these interpersonal connections get rebuilt? Where do these ideas get “recouraged” as pastor Jeff Manion would say? 

Back in the day, manhood was being taught in the office of a church and at evening gatherings with the club or frat. Sometimes we’d even see manhood being taught right on the street corner as we shared what side of the sidewalk a man should walk with a woman in order to protect her. Yet, conversations laced with manhood weren’t layered with “love-talk”. It’s possible though, that love was seen as an expression or behavior; that may be what was actually considered safe. Within those “safe” places are the opportunities to create new neural pathways( connected nerves along which electrical impulses travel in the body) that are rooted in themes of love through self-appreciation, self-expression, and camaraderie. 

With self-appreciation, every man has an opportunity to practice affirmation, empowerment, and gratitude with the giftings, skills, and results he has already achieved. Practicing automatic negative thoughts based on unrealized dreams or potential is a dangerous place to dwell. Instead, revisit places of success that produce emotions of gratitude or encouragement. Replace negative thinking with appreciation for the skill developed at the last job that can now help you get a promotion on your current job. As a poet once said, “As a man thinks, so he becomes.” Your thoughts and behaviors must have practiced gratitude from what has already been accomplished. 

Self-expression is powered by faith and creativity; something our ancestors showed us by invention, ingenuity, and managed idealism. One of my favorite phrases I tell clients is “create as a way to cope.” This is what George Washington Carver, Langston Hughes, and the Bronner brothers had to do. Self-expression doesn’t start with just seeing and copying. Rather, the practice of it is relegated to imagining what does not exist, visualizing yourself doing or creating it, and bringing it into existence. Currently, society

calls this practice “manifestation”. Yet, this idea is based on having faith, grit, and creativity. When was the last time the love to solve a problem, or help someone out, was connected to something that does not exist? Loving oneself comes from loving what one thinks and one imagines enough to love what could be created to solve something only love could. Get it? 

Lastly, this leads to camaraderie. Working with male clients in the mental health field has taught me that so many men find themselves isolated and lonely. They often believe in having few relationships or at least ones with an affinity toward accomplishment of a certain goal (be that a family unit, business idea, profit producing mechanism, etc). With those same men, I encourage proper self-care through participation in a diverse group of other men. Now this idea is easier for the extrovert who is people-powered, rather than the introvert, or ambivert (someone who exhibits both introversion and extroversion traits). In a group is the ability to practice what I call, “the circle of accountability.” In this method I encourage every man to look at his “love circle” in four ways: 

-Who are my peers? Who are the people that I can look to as brotherly, supportive, and can call me out when I’m wrong? -Who are my mentors? Who is the trusted voice that can correct, empower, and improve my stance in life that has already walked a similar road in some aspect of my life? 

-Who is my downline/mentee? Who am I pouring in lessons of life toward? Who gets my learned life lessons or cheat codes? -How am I being accountable to myself, my dreams, and my desires? 

With all these ideas, love is a practice, a place, and person-based. It’s complex and also simple to institute. It is something I am personally growing in and have not mastered myself. Still, when we decide to ideate, allow ourselves to feel, and behave with intention from it, there is reverberation through our beings. So to practice this “phileo” based love is to become love. Maybe just then, we’ll express it without suspicion and with measured mindfulness to our brother, neighbor, and friends.