Manologues

Everybody needs a pep talk every once in a while. What

do you say to yourself when no one else is around?
If goodness can be determined by behavior when no one is looking, then the
truth about oneself can be told only when looking in the mirror, alone. Men
are often portrayed as lacking self-awareness, but the men I know have
ongoing discussions with themselves about faith, goodness, fear, and what
they should really be doing with their lives.

My manologue is a barometer of how I am doing. I still have to do battle

with those self-perceptions that are ugly and painful. On a bad day, the
shower is a dangerous place. Something will float back into my brain from
an hour, a year, or a decade ago, when I did something stupid. Self-hate fills
my mind and the internal monologue has to be silenced by a single, very
audible word, expressed out of profound discomfort like some deep,
instinctual reflex.

“Fuck!”
What causes a guy to swear at himself? I’ve spent a lifetime trying to figure
that out: AA, shrinks, meditation, anti-depressants. Recently, the thing that
has worked best is the very same thing that worked when I was a teenager,
brutally hard exercise that leaves me spent, filled with endorphins—and
unable to loathe myself. Spending time with my kids and holding my wife
also helps. But the demons sometimes come back in my dreams. I wake, not
sure if my terror is over something real or imagined. It’s usually something
twisted beyond recognition by my subconscious.

♦◊♦

In the last few years, I’ve trained with a champion Russian kick-boxer. He
often tells me that 98 percent of the thoughts in my brain are meaningless.
They are the voices of doubt, distraction, and insanity. It’s only the 2 percent
that really matters.

Most normal people have a hard time distinguishing the 2 percent from the
98 percent. My theory is that addicts have a unique ability to see what is true
and what is the dark shadow of insanity. They use addiction to block out the
98 percent and give them a super-human ability to focus their minds on just
the thoughts that really matter—this swing, this line of dialogue, this deal
term.

The difficulty in sobriety is to find other ways to clear the mind of chaos,
letting go of the negative chatter, and focusing just on the few critical
elements of success. Meditation helps. Faith is critical. A grounding in the
truth of why we are here and what really matters in this world can keep
things in perspective. But it still comes down to an ability to focus—one that
comes out of becoming right with the soul, not out of addiction.

So I try to resist the instinct to yell at myself. I try to clear my mind of all
thoughts.

I try to repeat an instruction from the Zen master Shunryu Suzuki that my
rowing coach once told me before a race: “When you do something, you
should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of
yourself.”

I don’t always succeed; but my wife hasn’t come running into the bathroom
to ask whether I am hurt for at least a couple of months now. So I must be
getting better.

Here’s what a few other guys report as their “manologues”:

♦◊♦

When I’m taking a leak and thinking about who is pissing me off I think to
myself, “Just calm down and don’t say anything!”

—Elliott, software engineer, Brookline, Massachusetts

♦◊♦

My internal monologue, left to its own devices, runs toward fear and worry.
It’s at its worst in the evening when I’m alone, or in the mornings in the
shower. The thing I say to myself most often to combat this is: “Don’t be
afraid, your best is good enough, let God be God and you just be Todd.”
And I sometimes I pray astronaut Alan Shepard’s prayer: “Dear God, please
don’t let me fuck up.”

—Todd Mauldin, bluesman, Reno, Nevada

♦◊♦

When I’m in the shower, alone (though I often share this experience with a
woman), I ask a question. Again and again. The question is simply, “What
else?” “What else can I do?” “What else can I say?” “What else can I
share?” “What else should I loofah”? The answer is always the same.
“More.” “More.” “More.” “More.” And “The bottoms of my feet.”

—Jeff Madden, frontman, Chicago, Illinois

♦◊♦

I was deployed to Iraq with an Army Aviation (Blackhawks, Chinooks) unit.

Many times there I had to tell myself, “Don’t quit!” Sometimes when I hang
in for just another minute, the heat becomes more bearable. On a gunnery
range, I tell myself, “Breathe!”
When I talk to myself out loud, it’s usually in one-syllable words.

—Sgt. Neil Gussman, Pennsylvania Army National Guard

♦◊♦

I look in the mirror every morning and say, “Hello, gorgeous!” in a circa-
1970 Barbra Streisand voice.

—Jonathan, writer, Newton, Massachusetts

♦◊♦

In the shower, in front of the mirror, anywhere there seems to be no one

around, I say to myself, “Dominate the game.” I started saying that year-
round for positive thinking when I got on my college basketball team. It
didn’t help me get off the bench, but I still say it randomly out of self-
brainwashing. Eventually I’ll have to dominate some game with all that
positivity I’ve been putting out there so long.

—Paul Thomas, guitarist, Chicago, Illinois

♦◊♦

Sometimes I stare at the faces of the Dust Bowl farmers who Steinbeck
interviewed; those guys were in an ultimately serious bind. Or I remember
the quote from Rip Hamilton’s (of the Detroit Pistons) father before Rip was
going to play in the NBA Championship: “Son, that’s not pressure. Pressure
is having four kids and not knowing how you’re going to feed them.”

—Stuart Horwitz, writer, Rhode Island

♦◊♦

When I’m either getting ready for a night out with the fellas, out on a run, or
on the treadmill, I have one thing that comes to mind: “Circus.” Does it get
any gayer? Sure thing, repeating “center of the ring” in my head actually
boosts my confidence and pushes me to work harder to be on top.

—Jonathan Bender, editorial manager

 ♦◊♦

Anytime I see a mirror I think, “This shit again.”

—Brian Scolaro, comedian, Los Angeles, California

♦◊♦

When I need to get my game face on, or am feeling particularly anxious, or

just need a little centering, I repeat a prayer taken from the Episcopal
baptismal service in the Book of Common Prayer: “Dear Lord, sustain me in
your grace; grant me an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will
and persevere, the spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and
wonder in all your works.” It calms me and helps provide immediate
perspective. Pretty basic stuff, but the language is beautiful and there is
plenty to go deeper on if necessary.

—James Houghton, co-founder, the Good Men Project

♦◊♦

The thing I say most is “Hello, you pencil-necked collection of past

failures.”

—Sean Kent, comedian, Los Angeles, California

♦◊♦

Something I began saying in high school has stuck with me when I feel my
muscles getting achy, “All pain is suffering, all suffering is happiness, and
all happiness is bliss.” It makes zero sense but has a Zen-like quality that it
keeps me going.

—Ari Herzog, policy and communications specialist, Newburyport,

Massachusetts

♦◊♦

When I go for a run in Central Park, I find myself saying:

1) “Fuck, she’s hot.”
2) “C’mon, dude, put your shirt back on.”
3) “This playlist sucks.”

—Andrew Ginsburg, actor, comedian, writer, New York, New York

♦◊♦

A sardonic and sarcastic silent conversation with yourself not only provides
an outlet for your angst, it keeps you company when you feel alone and
outnumbered. Keeping irreverence to yourself also shelters your stunted
maturity from any unnecessary exposure.

—Colin Sokolowski, author, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota

♦◊♦

I’m a middle-aged husband and father of three young sons, all of whom are
forced to deal with the fact that daddy tells jokes for a living. As I go about
my day, I find myself often repeating an internal monologue—“Damn, you
have come a long way!” This thought can be initiated by numerous stimuli,
including the observation of someone behaving in a way that indicates a
moron is in our midst. Yes, I’m a recovering idiot. Selfishness used to move
me into directions I thought were amusing at the time, but now that I have
little mirrors all around me (kids), I can pause or reflect before making
another move of stupidity. My dad left when I was born, so my mantra can
be said on a daily basis, since I am present and active with my family,
offering unconditional, unbridled love and joy—“Damn, you have come a
long way!”

—Craig Shoemaker, comedian, Westlake Village, California

♦◊♦

The same pattern hits my thinking whenever I have a pause from routine. I
can be in the car, or standing in a line at the grocery: “Am I doing right?”
For example—the right thing with my daughter’s evolving identity issues,
the right thing with my son’s sense of compassion, or my ex-wife’s
loneliness, or my lover’s independence, my business partner’s goals, my
father’s fear of dying, or my mother’s need for more time together … In
short: “Am I the man I want to be for the people I love? Or have I been a
selfish fraud?”

—Matthew Piepenburg, financial executive, New York, New York

♦◊♦

Well, I fooled ’em all one more day. Let’s see what I got in my bag of tricks
for tomorrow.

—Tom, media professional, New York, New York

♦◊♦

Scallywag & Vagabond:

Manologues: in search of male identity

—photo Wolf94114/Flickr

We Recommend

You might like:

• 10 Film Characters That Will Make You a Better Man (The Good
Men Project Magazine)
• The Master Bath: Where Romance Goes to Die (The Good Men
Project Magazine)
• The ‘Douchification’ of the American Man (The Good Men Project
Magazine)
• Health and Masculinity: Is Manhood Killing Us? (The Good Men
Project Magazine)
• Good Jew (The Good Men Project Magazine)
• Ethical Pickup Artistry (The Good Men Project Magazine)

About Tom Matlack

Tom Matlack is the co-founder of The Good Men Project. He has a 17-year-
old daughter and 15- and 6-year-old sons. His wife, Elena, is the love of his
life.

Comments

1. Perry Glasser says:

April 4, 2011 at 10:36 am

1 0

I try to visualize the assholes plaguing me in pink ballet tutus made of

taffeta. Then I remember that if they were any good, I’d be admiring
them, not putting them into tutus.

Reply

2. Carlos says:

April 4, 2011 at 12:55 pm

0 0

I always tell myself “it will end”…

Reply

3. TomR says:

April 4, 2011 at 3:07 pm

0 0
 I prefer to reflect on my good fortune more than bang myself up over
failures. I had plenty of beating myself up in my first 30 years, and if I
ever get low on humility, I can always call my dad. ;^)

Today I focus on the positive and ask myself what can I do to help my
wife, my friends, my neighbors, and my team (and not always in that
order, either). Being a good husband, a servant leader, a valued
mentor, a trusted advisor, and a true friend, is more and more
important to me.

Reply

4. Patrick says:

April 4, 2011 at 5:11 pm

0 0

In order for any self-talk to be of value, you need to talk to someone

that can help. Enter your best self. You need to be able to bring to
mind that image, and then have a heart to heart discussion about the
challenges or problems you are facing. This is what I do, this is what I
teach my clients and friends.

Reply

5. Beck says:

April 4, 2011 at 6:52 pm

0 0

The best pep talk I ever heard. Link on my name.

Reply