A Recovering Smiler | How Men Lose Themselves Trying to Be Nice

I sometimes refer to myself as a recovering smiler, as I used to smile a lot in moments when it was inauthentic for me to smile.

It was a symptom of something deeper; it was part of an unconscious ‘nice guy’ persona that I was upholding.

I was already for years on my journey of shadow work before I found out I was doing this and that it was inauthentic; a mask.

Most of the time, I wasn’t smiling to give love, or because I felt like smiling. I was putting on a smile to be likeable. It was a protection mechanism to feel safe.

Behind this likeable, non-dangerous good guy image there was a world of suppressed and unintegrated material under the surface.

Nice guys are usually men who carry suppressed emotions like sadness and anger, who are afraid of their primal masculine qualities, and who don’t speak their truth, afraid to get uncomfortable or to piss anyone off.

Their communication is often vague and unclear, and they tend to have a habit of not sticking to their word, neither with themselves nor with others.

They don’t integrate the primal masculine animal inside because they have been taught by society that masculinity is bad, lacking healhy examples of it.

And are unable to be in a polarized deep relationship with a powerful feminine woman, fearing her power as much as their own.

They please, are more interested in being liked than in being real, and are used to fail the commitments they make to themselves on a daily basis in all kinds of smaller and bigger ways.

Deep down, they suffer, because they betray themselves and don’t live their potential. They admire men who are thriving with power, and wish to change their relationship with the feminine, and have yet to find out that this is actually possible for them.

What does this have to do with meditation? Everything.

It is only a man with a daily devotion to cultivating presence that can begin to find out all this unconsciousness within himself, and find the courage, energy and discipline, to start rising above it.

In my 1:1 coaching I work with men deeper into these parts, to integrate more of ourselves more fully.

Find out more about mentorship here.