In recognition of Men’s Mental Health Month, I offer this not as a diagnosis but as a mirror—a reflection—of one man’s honest reckoning with what it really means to “be a man” in a world that rewards our silence and buries our truth.

Every June, we remember the tragic loss of great men—Robin Williams, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Anthony Bourdain. Men who made us laugh, think, feel… and then left us too soon. These weren’t weak men. They were men crushed by the quiet torment of expectations they could no longer uphold. And the silence that made it impossible to ask for help.

So let me say something that might cost me the stamp of being a “real man” in the eyes of some:

Hi. My name is JC Doornick, and I get scared about many things.

I know some will read that and think I’ve betrayed the code. That I've "outed the brotherhood." But I’m tired of pretending. I’m tired of losing men I love to silence. To pride. To pressure. To shame. And if sharing my truth helps even one man remove the mask, it's worth it.

Because here’s the truth: Being a man today is a zero-sum game.

 

Episode 97 Resources:

Under Saturns Shadow by James Hollis  - https://amzn.to/3F4NvAP

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MAKES SENSE PODCAST

Welcome to the Makes Sense with Dr. JC Doornick Podcast: This podcast covers topics that expand human consciousness and performance. On the Makes Sense Podcast, we acknowledge that it's who you are that determines how well what you do works, and that perception is a subjective and acquired taste. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at begin to change. Welcome to the uprising of the sleepwalking masses. Welcome to the Makes Sense with Dr. JC Doornick Podcast.

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Highlights:

0:00 - Intro 2:57 - Manning Up - The Zero Sum Game of Manhood 7:00 - The truth about being a man today? 10:48 - The Nine Shadow Fears that Haunt the Modern Man 13:47 - I don’t want to pass on the pain to my kids. 19:32 - Shadow Work 23:59 - The Arrows that men hide? 28:44 - Integrating this change into your life