I want to be clear about something before you read another word.

My mission hasn't changed.

Through my lens as a photographer, through 800+ episodes of Empowerography, through every conversation, every platform, every stage I've stood on, lifting women up, making space for their stories, and championing their power has been and will always be at the core of everything I do and I will never stop doing that.

But June is Men's Mental Health Month. And there is something sitting so heavily on me right now that I can no longer stay quiet about it.

Because I am a man. And I carry things too.

The Conversation Nobody Is Having

A close friend of mine has been struggling lately. Not with work, not with money but with something that cuts much deeper, he genuinely cannot figure out what women want from men.

He told me that women say they want the protector. The strong provider. The man who has it together. But they also say they want the guy who opens up, shows his feelings, shares what's really going on inside, so he tried that. He got vulnerable, he opened up, he shared and she bolted, took off in the other direction and wanted nothing to do with him.

And here's what hit me hardest about that conversation, this isn't just his story. I hear this from men constantly. The moment they show up the way they've been told to show up, open, feeling, present, they get punished for it, so they go back to silence and that silence is costing us everything.

What I Witnessed At Empowerography Live

Last year at Empowerography Live, our virtual conference, we hosted a men's panel. I'll be honest, I wasn't sure how it would land but it was a resounding success.

The women in the audience were moved in a way I didn't fully anticipate. Comment after comment said the same thing, "I had no idea men felt this way." They said it changed the entire energy of the conference. That it was one of the most powerful moments of the day.

Think about that for a second.

The women who love the men in their lives, their partners, their fathers, their brothers, their sons, had absolutely no idea what those men were carrying.

Because the men never said a word.

Because they were never supposed to.

The Numbers That Stopped Me Cold

I want to share some statistics with you. Not to shock you. But because these numbers represent real human beings, fathers, brothers, sons, friends and they deserve to be seen.

↳ Men die by suicide at nearly 4x the rate of women in the United States.

↳ In Canada, men account for 3 out of every 4 suicides — almost 10 men every single day.

↳ In 2024, over 42,000 men across North America died by suicide. Gone in silence.

↳ Only 45.9% of men with a mental illness received any treatment in the past year.

↳ The #1 reason men don't seek help? "I thought I could handle it on my own."

Read that last one again.

The Mask We've Been Told To Wear

We have raised generations of men to believe that silence is strength.That needing help is weakness, that "handling it" alone is what makes you a man, and it is killing us. NOT metaphorically but literally.

Here's what makes this crisis so invisible, men don't always show up to their pain looking like sadness, it shows up as irritability, as anger, as disappearing, as drinking too much, working too much, disconnecting from everything and everyone that matters.

We've learned to perform fine so well that the people who love us don't even know we're drowning.

I get it. It's easy to forget about the men. They're supposed to be the strong ones, right? The ones with all the answers. The ones who hold it together no matter what.

Except nobody told us what to do when we're the ones falling apart.

We Have To Start With Our Boys

Here's what's becoming undeniably clear to me through every conversation I have, every man who pulls me aside after a talk, every DM that starts with "I don't usually talk about this, but..."

We have to start with our boys.

We have to teach them early that emotions aren't enemies. That asking for help is one of the bravest things a human being can do. That vulnerability isn't the opposite of strength, it IS strength because the man who suffers in silence at 45 was once the boy who was told to toughen up at 8.

That boy deserved better. And so does the man he became.

What We All Can Do

To every man reading this, you are not weak for struggling, you are not broken for feeling, you are not less of a man for needing help, you are human.

And to everyone else, check on your men. Not just "how are you?" The real question. The one you ask slowly, with eye contact, with space for a real answer. The one that says I actually want to know.

We cannot keep losing men to silence, not at the expense of anyone else, not instead of the work I do championing women but alongside it because lifting people up, all people, has always been what this platform is about.

We have to do better. For our men. For our boys. For all of us.

You Are Not Alone

If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, call or text 988. It's free, confidential, and available 24/7.

Did this resonate with you? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. And if you know someone, a man, a father, a brother, a friend, who needs to read this today, please share it with them. Sometimes just being seen is enough to change everything.

Want more conversations like this delivered straight to your inbox? Subscribe to Beyond The Mic, my newsletter where I go beyond the podcast and get into the real stuff.

📱 Follow me on Instagram: @empowerographypodcast
🎙️ Listen to Empowerography wherever you get your podcasts