An Ode to the Men in my Family and for Anyone who Relates to This Chief Listener. Zero Judgement. Unlimited Cuddles Nobody gave you permission. That is the problem. Not your dad, not your school, not the culture you grew up in. Nobody sat you down and said, "You are allowed to cry." You are allowed to be scared. You are allowed to fall apart a little, to be overwhelmed, to not know what to do next. Instead, most men received the opposite, a long, largely unspoken education in

(For the purpose of this article, I’ll use the term gay. I am using this term for simplicity and honest writing for the reader, and it is not meant to offend anybody who might be reading this.) Cleocatra questioning my next move Nobody tells you that when someone you love comes out, you might need your own space to process it. This is that space. The Thoughts You Are Not Proud Of There is the shame that comes from worrying what other people think, and then there is the more p

An Ode to the Men in my Family Betty the Border Terrier showing us how cross she is to be in the car yet again! I have written this for the men in my family and for anyone who recognises something in this article. Nobody gave you permission. That is the problem. Not your dad, not your school, not the culture you grew up in. Nobody sat you down and said, "You are allowed to cry." You are allowed to be scared. You are allowed to fall apart a little, to be overwhelmed, to not kn

In outsourcing our body wisdom to wearables, podcasts, and wellness gurus, we may have silenced the most sophisticated health monitor ever made. It starts simply enough. You wake up feeling groggy, reach for your phone, and check your sleep score before you’ve even decided whether you feel rested. The number says 74. You were hoping for something in the eighties. Now, despite the fact that your body felt perfectly fine a moment ago, you feel tired. The app has spoken. This is

I was with family recently when I had a realisation. I happened to have glanced across the room towards my cousin, when something just hit me. It was in the set of his jaw and the way he smiled. I could see our grandmother, my father, his father, and other family members too. A lineage written right there in someone’s face. And with it came a sadness that is hard to explain. I am adopted. I’ve known this my whole life, and for the most part, I’m comfortable with it. My family

We are remarkably good at not feeling things. Honestly, if avoidance were an Olympic sport, most of us would be in the running for gold. We scroll, we stay busy, we pour another glass of wine, we say "I'm fine" so many times we almost start to believe it. And for a while, it works. Until it doesn't. Avoiding emotions is not a character flaw. It is a very human response to pain. But when it becomes a pattern, it shapes everything: how we relate to the people we love, how we fe