By Dr. Bill Paterson
Introduction
This paper explores how mindfulness and compassion training can provide men with a pathway to healthier forms of masculinity. Based on my personal experience and research with men who’ve completed this training, I suggest that mindfulness practices offer a “blueprint for change” that helps men develop emotional awareness, vulnerability, and deeper connections with themselves and others.
Framing Men’s Masculinities Around Love
Many institutions that shape our lives have historically been created by and for men. As Simone de Beauvoir noted, “Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth.” However this access to power does not mean that men are happy.
Whilst there have been demands for equality, Bell hooks argues that while men have made some progress in sharing power in workplaces, many remain emotionally closed. This emotional disconnect prevents true intimacy, which requires vulnerability—allowing “uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.” Without intimacy, men create barriers that limit loving relationships.
This is often expressed as “Toxic masculinity”. It refers to attitudes and behaviours that harm men’s health: being “unemotional, independent, non-nurturing, aggressive and dispassionate,” denying weakness, engaging in risky behaviors, and avoiding help-seeking. These traits are linked to anxiety, depression, stress, and poor health outcomes, reflected in male suicide rates and life expectancy. Toxic masculinity also impacts negatively on the life and well being of those connected to the man. Many women and children have experienced aggressive, violent and/or emotional closed fathers, brothers, husbands, partners and strangers.
Even though many men are unhappy, bell hooks argues “men cannot change if there are no blueprints for change. Men cannot love if they are not taught the art of loving. Love is vital to maleness, to the spiritual and emotional wholeness men seek”. She defines love as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth… To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients—care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.” She emphasizes that “love and abuse cannot coexist.”
What might this blue print for change look like? Research by Brené Brown shows “the ability to name … emotions or experiences is essential to be able to process it in a productive and healing manner.” It would seem that learning how to name and be with emotions will enable men to become emotionally open and curious, emotionally aware and emotionally literate. My experience of mindfulness and compassion training from the Mindfulness Association was one where I learned how to name and be with difficult emotions. Perhaps this might provide some men with a blue print for change.
The Mindfulness and Compassion Blueprint
Mindfulness is “knowing what is happening, while it is happening, without preference.” Training involves specific techniques to experience awareness and develop compassion toward thoughts, emotions, and sensations.
Practices include:
Anchoring awareness on breath or sensations
Observing thoughts without engaging them
Accepting the presence of emotions without becoming them
Developing self-compassion rather than self-criticism
This approach encourages emotional openness, vulnerability, and developing a shared language to articulate experiences. The practice emphasises:
Autonomy and belonging
Equality and limited hierarchy
Embracing impermanence
Curiosity in not knowing
Co-creating understanding
Through mindfulness, I learned to recognize emotions in my body, connect them to thought patterns, and realize my identity was constructed, not innate. I became curious rather than critical, emotionally aware rather than closed, and transformed my relationships with myself and everyone in my life.
Masculinity Research Project
Working with paramedics, police, and military veterans, I noticed more men participating in mindfulness classes. I collaborated with Dr. Kirsty Alexander on research exploring how mindfulness affects men’s sense of masculinity. Our study involved ten primarily white, educated men over 50 who had completed mindfulness training. They were interviewed twice about their experiences and perceptions of masculinity.
Preliminary Findings
Before mindfulness training, participants described unhealthy ways of being, including anger, aggression, isolation, emotional closure, and substance use. “Alpha-male” workplace culture made showing emotions or vulnerability as a sign of weakness. After training, men reported:
Greater emotional awareness and literacy
Ability to manage difficult emotions
Reduced self-criticism
More authentic relationships
Improved self-acceptance
Greater courage to be vulnerable
Recognition of unhelpful masculine conditioning
One participant noted: “I feel more happier with myself. I’m not struggling to get a better car or better home or better partner… I am okay. I am okay. I am okay!”
Another reflected: “As I become in touch more with my feelings, I like it. There is nothing soft or wish washy about this. In fact, it is quite courageous to do this actually.”
Conclusion
The Mindfulness Association’s training offers men a path to becoming emotionally open, emotionally aware, and emotionally literate. It creates a safe environment where men can explore emotions and develop loving relationships based on “care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.”
This approach has the potential to be one of the “blueprint for change” to improve men’s health and well-being while creating more harmonious relationships with all beings.