Reclaim Playfulness & Joy as a Man

There was a time in my life when everything felt heavy.

Men’s work, this path of growth, healing, and depth, can feel like dragging yourself through the mud, day after day.
There’s always something to uncover.
Another layer to peel back.
Another shadow to face.

And for a while, I believed that was the only way.
If I just went deep enough, I thought, I’d finally be free.

I got really good at going deep.
I could sit with the darkness.
Talk about my childhood wounds.
Name every pattern and pain like a well-rehearsed monologue.
I wore my self-awareness like armor.

But something was missing.

One day, I looked in the mirror and realised I hadn’t laughed in weeks.
Not just a chuckle.
I mean really laughed.
The kind of laughter that comes from your belly and makes your eyes water.
I hadn’t played.
I hadn’t danced.
I hadn’t been foolish or free.

I’d become so focused on becoming a “better man” that I forgot how to just be a man.
A human.
A soul having a human experience.

I believe I came here to learn.
To face the hard stuff.
To feel the grief, the rage, the sorrow.
But also to feel joy.
To smell the ocean.
To roll in the grass.
To fall in love with the ordinary moments.

I had to go through the dark.
But not to stay there.
I had to let it shape me, not define me.

There was a moment I remember clearly.
I made a choice.
I would stop living inside the story.
I would feel the emotion, welcome it, but not let it run the show.

And that’s when something shifted.

I started to play again.
With my daughter.
With my mates.
With life.

I remembered what it felt like to be spontaneous.
Curious.
Light.

I reconnected with the boy inside me.
The one who used to run barefoot.
Climb trees.
Believe he could fly.

And I saw something I hadn’t seen before.
Play isn’t a distraction from the work.
It is the work.

Because without it, we forget why we’re healing in the first place.
Without it, we lose the spark.
And a man without a spark is just surviving.

I’m not here to survive.
I’m here to live.
To love.
To feel it all.
And to play my way through this wild, beautiful life.