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Bleeding in the Bedroom - A Brutally Honest Review of Healing the Masculine Wound
87 Plays4 months ago
Guys, when was the last time you cried and then apologized for it? When was the last time somebody asked you how you were doing, and you actually told them?
Today's episode is powerful, life-changing, and riveting - you do not want to miss this one! Share this with your friends and community, they won't want to miss it either!
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Transcript
Introduction to Masculinity and Emotional Wounds
00:00:17
Speaker
What's up, what's up, what's up? You're listening to Mixing It Up, and I'm your host, of course, Sylvester Mixon, and I've got a powerful, life-changing, riveting podcast for you today that I truly believe is going to level your ah life up. And so tell all of your friends, share this, tag them in this.
00:00:43
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They've got to hear this.
Discussing 'Bleeding in the Bedroom' and Emotional Honesty
00:00:45
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Today in this podcast, I want to talk about Bleeding in the Bedroom, a brutally honest review of a book I read called Healing the Masculine Wound.
00:00:58
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hoof
00:01:07
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Let me ask you something you probably weren't expecting today. When was the last time you cried? and didn't apologize for it? When was the last time somebody asked you how you're doing and you actually told them?
00:01:25
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Yeah, that's what I thought.
00:01:29
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See, we've built an entire civilization of men who can run boardrooms, build empires, preach sermons, fix engines, leave families, but who can't find the words to say, I'm not okay.
Exploring Masculinity and Transformation
00:01:45
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And here's the part that may sting a little bit, because that's what we do here on Mixing Up is, you know, we we get down to the nitty gritty. We confront, right? We speak truth to power. We understand that there can't be transformation if there is no confrontation, right?
00:02:03
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We know that the Bible says the truth shall make you free. And so we don't just talk, we tell the truth. And what if I told you that the wound that you're carrying right now you didn't even give it to yourself.
00:02:19
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So welcome to Mixing It Up. And I'm Sylvester Mixon, senior pastor, leader, husband, father, son, student. And to today I'm your book reviewer.
00:02:32
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And we're talking about john lee John Lee's landmark work, Healing the Masculine Womb. And I promise you, this is not a therapy session. um This really is a freeing conversation. And I want to talk and even give you a few reflection questions and ah maybe also some short show notes, a link to that at the end of our
Strength: Performance vs. Possession
00:02:57
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conversation. and So there is a contrast between the man we perform and the man we are.
00:03:06
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And here's the contrast that hit me like a linebacker the first time I read this book. We often produce strong men. We celebrate strong men, but we have a crisis of whole men. and And listen, there is a difference between a man who is performing strength and a man who is possessing strength.
00:03:26
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You see the performing man, he's got the title, he's got the suit, he's got the handshake, he's got the look, the swag. He's got the house, he goes to church, maybe even leads it. But inside he is running on fumes, fueled by a wound that's so old, he's mistaken it for his personality or even dangerous more dangerous, his identity.
00:03:49
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See, some of us aren't dealing with a bad day. We're dealing with a bad decade that never got addressed. John Lee says in Healing the Masculine Womb, and I'm going to frame this precisely so we honor his work, that many men operate from a place of deep emotional self-distrust, patterns inherited from father wounds that were never processed,
00:04:14
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Only to pass them on and perpetuate that same pain to sons and generations.
Critique of Church Spaces and Emotional Suppression
00:04:21
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Right. And here's where this really gets kind of messy and and where I need us to really strap into what I'm saying is the church hasn't always helped.
00:04:34
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Yeah, I said what I said, and i and I'm saying it with love because I'm a part of the church. I am the church, right? We are the church. We are the body, the physical body of Christ. And we have in some spaces used scripture to spiritualize suppression.
00:04:51
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Can I talk? Like we've turned be strong and courageous into don't you dare feel that, you know, we've weaponized the idea of the strong man against the real man.
Spiritual Activity vs. Emotional Expression
00:05:05
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Pastor, bishop, leader, have you preached about the armor of God but never talked about the wounds under his armor? Have you ever told men to pray it through but never created a safe space to talk it through?
00:05:22
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I heard it once said like this, we've discipled men into activity but not into authenticity. Right? We've made them busy for God, but not honest before God. And there is a difference, right? You can be busy, but broken because you haven't been honest.
00:05:41
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And I think that the Lord has something to say and desires that we would be healed, desire that we would be set free, right?
Men's Mental Health: Statistics and Struggles
00:05:57
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Psalms 34, 18 is a powerful scripture. It says the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and the crushed in spirit he receives. Our God is a healer and I'm a living witness of that.
00:06:10
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I've seen him do some stuff in my own life from my broken places and desolate spaces where God was able to restore me. and and y'all the same god if god could do that for me he can do that for you you see the psalms are full of david crying screaming lamenting raging at god and we call him a man after god's own heart right but somehow his emotional honesty didn't make the sunday school curriculum for the men's ministry and that my friend is a problem it's a whole problem
00:06:44
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Come on, if we wech eyes they touch a neighbor and tell them that's a problem, that we have an issue there. There is tension in this text. Praise God. You see, here the facts.
00:06:54
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but we lead also in the truth of god's word when we look at the data um this isn't anecdotal this is a crisis hiding in plain sight right when you look at the data according to the national alliance of mental illness uh in 2023 only 45.9 percent of u.s men with a diagnosed mental illness received any treatment Less than half. And that's just the ones who were diagnosed, y'all.
00:07:25
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Research published in the Journal of Men's Health reveals that adherence to traditional masculinity norms is directly correlated with higher rates of depression, substance abuse, and resistance to seeking help.
00:07:41
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A 2024 study found that 40% men report feeling lonely at least once a week. Yet men are far less likely than women to seek support for that loneliness.
00:07:53
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Here's the one that broke me. 77% of men report experiencing symptoms of anxiety, stress, or depression, but most of them remain completely silent about it.
00:08:04
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And that was from the Health of for Life Grand Rapids
Emotional Healing: Analogies and Approaches
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2025. 77%.
00:08:10
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That means that men, there's a man sitting next to you on your row on Sunday, nodding his head, saying amen, but internally drowning. And nobody knows. that As a bishop and a pastor of almost 22 years, I've seen this, I've noticed this. And, you know, the church really has to have that prophetic spirit and that spirit of discernment um and become our brother's keeper to where we are able to discern our brothers and sisters around us, you know, where they really are.
00:08:40
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ah Because oftentimes people are hurting, but they are not talking at all. Here's an image that's been sitting with me since I read this book. You know what a grafted tree is, right?
00:08:53
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So in horticulture, a graft is when you take a wounded or a broken branch and you join it together to a stronger root stop. The original tree had the damage, maybe disease, maybe a wound from a storm. And so they cut it. They expose the raw part and they fuse it to something that they can carry.
00:09:16
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And here's the thing about a graft. The wound has been exposed before healing can happen. You cannot graft a tree through the bark.
00:09:27
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The cut has to be clean and intentional. And that's what John Lee is calling calling us to. He's saying, man, your masculine wound, the the father who left you, the father who stayed but was never present, the the father who was there but there was never any interaction, the father who didn't know how to say I love you because his father never said it to him. That wound has been covered for decades and a covered wound doesn't heal, it festers.
00:09:59
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Right. And so the most dangerous stories are the ones we tell ourselves about why we don't need help.
Inherited Emotional Wounds and Regression
00:10:07
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And so there's an interference that nobody asked for it. If I can make this thing practical, let me bring this into your living room. Think about a man.
00:10:18
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Let's call this man Marcus. Let's say Marcus is 38 years old and he's got a good job. His kids love him. His wife respects him from the outside. Marcus is winning. But Marcus has never told his son, I love you, without it feeling awkward.
00:10:32
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Marcus goes silent when conflict arises in his marriage. Marcus finds reasons to stay late at work because being busy keeps him from having to feel awkward. And Marcus has no idea, no idea that he learned all of that from watching his own father disappear into work, into silence, into emotional unavailability.
00:10:53
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And watch this. John Lee calls this emotional regression. It's when an adult man reverts to emotional age at which the wound happened or occurred in his life.
00:11:04
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Marcus isn't distant on purpose. Marcus is a seven-year-old boy in a 38-year-old man's body still waiting for his dad to show up. And that's not weakness. That's inheritance. And inheritance can be redirected.
00:11:18
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Carl Jung famously said, there is no coming to consciousness without some pain. James Baldwin wrote, not everything this that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
Leadership in Healing and Authenticity
00:11:37
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And this one hit me personal as a pastor. Brennan Manning said the greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and then walk out of the door and deny him with their life.
00:11:54
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Whew.
00:11:58
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If I could just remix that the greatest single cause of men rejecting healing is leaders who preach wholeness, but model suppression themselves. We can't call men into healing.
00:12:11
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If as leaders, we're not healing ourselves. And so here's the practical takeaway. Simple, free, started today. And it's called the three question daily masculine check-in.
00:12:25
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I want you to do this every morning in the mirror, in your journal, or with your accountability partner. Number one, ask yourself, what am I feeling right now? And what's underneath that feeling?
00:12:36
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Right? Not I'm stressed. I want you to go deeper. What's the root? Not the fruit, but the root. Get to it. Why are you stressed? Where did that come from? Question number two, what wound am I protecting today?
00:12:50
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And is that protection serving me or sabotaging me? Name the armor. It's anger, it's silence, workaholism. Is it humor that deflects you just being funny because you're trying to cover up?
00:13:04
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What is it? Are you bitter? Name that thing. And number three, who do I need to be honest with today, including myself? Name one relationship, one conversation, one truth that you've been avoiding. And and that's it. Three questions, two minutes.
00:13:21
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The compound interest on that kind of self-awareness over several days, over maybe maybe two, or three months, will change your marriage, your ministry, your life, you as a man. I close with this.
00:13:34
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And here's how I need to leave you. There's...
Internal Issues vs. External Strength
00:13:38
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There's a building near my church and it's been there for years. And from the outside, it looks solid, good foundation, clean paint, strong walls. Everybody drives past it every day.
00:13:50
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But inside the structure is compromised. The beams have been quietly rotting from moisture that seeped in through a crack nobody fixed. And here's what's haunting about that building.
00:14:02
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It will look fine right up until the moment it doesn't. And that's a lot of men right now looking fine, functioning, respected, accomplished right up until the moment they explode, implode, disappear, die, hurt someone. And everyone around them says, but he seems so strong.
00:14:22
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John Lee's Healing the Masculine Wound is a structural inspector's report. It says we need to look inside, not because you're broken and beyond repair, but because you deserve to be whole and not just functional.
00:14:37
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You see, Jesus didn't just stop the bleeding. He asked the man by the pool of Bethesda a deeply provocative question. And he said, do you want to be healed? ah Not do you want to look healed. Not do you want people to think you're healed. Do you want to be healed?
00:14:55
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Because wholeness requires willingness and willingness starts with honesty. And you're not your father's unfinished story. You don't have to bleed into silence so your children can grow up wondering why you were always there but never present.
00:15:11
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The wound was real. The healing is available. And the decision is yours.
Conclusion: Encouragement for Emotional Freedom
00:15:17
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That's mixing it up. I'm Sylvester Mixon, and if this hits you, I want you to share it with a man who needs to hear this. Subscribe, leave a review, grab these show notes and on my link, and let's keep building men who aren't just strong, but men who actually are whole and able to live free on purpose.
00:15:37
Speaker
I'm Sylvester Mixon, and this is Mixing It Up.