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 how not to feel....

(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 private kind: the...

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 a shift that has...