Big Boys Do Cry

[Jaunty Guitar Music]

Mike: Welcome, everybody. This is Avoiding the Addiction Affliction brought to you by Westwords Consulting and the Kenosha County Substance Abuse Coalition. I'm Mike McGowan.

Mike: Every man listening to us right now heard the following while growing up. Suck it up, deal with it, and my personal favorite, just rub some dirt on it.

Mike: In other words, keep your feelings to yourself. Our guest today, Ryan Kopyar, has written a terrific book that addresses those messages from both a personal and a professional perspective. Ryan is a licensed Mental Health Counselor Associate in Washington, a Professional Counselor Associate in Oregon, and a registered clinical counselor in British Columbia.

Mike: He has a diverse background in holistic healing, counseling, and hypnotherapy. He has authored multiple books, including Unlock the Power of Your Mind, and the book we're going to chat a lot about today, Big Boy's Do Cry, A Man's Guide to Navigating Emotions and Showing Up More Vulnerable in Relationships.

Mike: It is a pleasure to have this conversation today. Welcome, Ryan.

Ryan: Oh, thank you so much, Mike. I love your energy, man, and I'm looking forward to kicking things around with you today.

Mike: Well, I when I saw your book, I just started laughing because of all those messages I heard growing up. So let's just get to it.

Mike: Why is it important for men to cry?

Ryan: It's important for men to cry because, you know, we spend a lot of our life kind of hardwired in the left side of our brain, that logical side of our brain. And that's great. That allows us to be doers and problem solvers and fixers. But it doesn't do such a great job of allowing us to connect in with people to get in touch with our emotions.

Ryan: And when we're in touch with our emotions, we're able to facilitate deeper levels of connection with people. And through that deeper level of connection come deeper levels of love. And so that's why it's so important for men to cry so that they can get out of their left brain into the right brain, drop down into their heart and create deeper levels of connection with those they love.

Mike: You know, not so easy to do. You talk in your book about your, I love this part. You talk about your great grandpa, your grandpa, and your dad, and their ability or, inability to show emotion. I think for a lot of men, those stories ring very true. Why do you think so many previous generations of men have had difficulty showing emotion?

Ryan: I think it was the way that they were raised. I think it's generational. I think in Western culture, men were told you've got to be hard. You've got to be stoic. You've got to be tough and let's call it what it is. My great grandfather was a hardworking oil driller. He was a, you know, just a blue collar guy.

Ryan: My grandfather was raised mostly by his grandparents, not even his, you know, my great grandfather, his father. And he lied, and I write about this in the book, he lied about his age to join the Navy. So, probably not such a good, he probably wasn't getting loved and hugged and told that everything was going to be okay, Art.

Ryan: Probably not happening if he lied to get into the Navy in the middle of wartime, nonetheless. Okay, so it's generational if I say to people, you know, I grew up in a small town in Binghamton, New York, if I did not grow up in a Spanish speaking household. Would I ever be expected to learn how to speak spanish?

Ryan: No, so if men grow up and and they weren't taught how to be vulnerable how to show emotions That means they they likely are not going to be able to teach it to their kids and and you know so down the line, so I think that's the main reason why mike.

Mike: Well and to illustrate your point. I always ask my kids, at Christmas, and this has now become a family joke, just before we open presents, I look at my kids and say, Is this going to make me cry?

Mike: And of course, inevitably, one of them gives me something that does, and that's the joke, because I do cry. But I thought your story about the sign your dad gave your grandfather at Christmas, was just so good. Tell that if you don't mind.

Ryan: Sure. So I'm home from college and my small family and it's my grandfather.

Ryan: My grandmother and father had gotten into a disagreement. So my grandmother didn't come over. This was Christmas Eve. She didn't come over. She ended up coming over for Christmas Day. So it's my grandfather, my father, my step mom and myself. And we're sitting around and we were exchanging some gifts on Christmas Eve.

Ryan: And prior to the exchanging of gifts, my dad had mentioned, Oh, I got a sign from our company, Kopyar Oil, a well drilling business. And I didn't even really know too much about the fact that my family had an oil drilling business, well drilling business, but I was like, Oh, okay. You know, that's kind of cool.

Ryan: Whatever. He found an old sign from a local yard sale or whatever. And so I'm not really thinking too much of it. You know, my grandfather, you get him some pragmatic gifts. You can get them the same gifts every year. He's going to be, he's going to be happy. Right. You know, Obsession cologne was like his, you know, we just knew every year.

Ryan: All right. Got his cologne. Right. So, and maybe a half a step back. I never saw my grandfather cry. My papa on my mom's side. Yes, I saw him cry quite frequently. My grandfather never saw him cry. So we're sitting down and my dad goes, you know, we exchanged all of the gifts and then my dad goes into the spare bedroom.

Ryan: He gets the sign and I'm not really thinking much of it, but my grandfather starts to unwrap it. And Mike, halfway through unwrapping it, he paused, and there is just this sense in the room of like, Whoa, what's going on here? Like, Gramps is, Gramps is a little shook. That's not like him. And I start to see a little tear kind of beat up in his eye, and he's just staring at the sign.

Ryan: My grandfather, and my papa, and myself, we're never short for words. He was short for words and I will never forget that moment and I write in the book I said, I don't know what was going through him emotionally. Was it kind of the processing of his childhood trauma? Was it the fact that he never wanted to take over that oil drilling business and he struggled, you know financially as a blue collar construction worker.

Ryan: Was it the fact that my dad had gone out of the way to give him such a heartfelt present of something that I didn't, I literally didn't even know existed. Like the sign was so old. It had six digits on the phone number.

Mike: Oh wow!

Ryan: So that's how you know it was an old sign, right? And so I'll never forget that moment in the impact that it had.

Ryan: Cause that was the first and only time I saw my grandfather cry.

Mike: And that was just a little tear that came down. Just a little tear. You know it's, that's just so typical, and like you, I love what you just said, I don't know what they were feeling. And it could have been just, you know this incredible, oh my gosh.

Mike: Your dad was so connected that he thought enough about your grandpa to buy him something that represented the family, and your grandpa knew that the family would go on. The other one you tell in the book that I think illustrates this a great deal is at your grandpa's funeral where you and your dad, was it by yourselves?

Mike: You went over there?

Ryan: Are you referring to when my grandfather had passed away?

Mike: Yes. Yeah.

Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. So my grandfather's health was not doing well. And we're at my house having breakfast, my dad, my step mom and I, and we get a call from my grandmother and she says, Art's not doing good, he's just sitting on the couch. And thinking like that's a little odd, but she called.

Ryan: So we should go over there. So we go over there and I don't know if he had passed away when my grandmother had called and she was just in a state of shock or what, but we go over there and you know, there's no ambulance there at this point. And my grandfather is there sitting on the couch, slumped over and, you know, we knew that he had passed at that point and he had this favorite rocking chair.

Ryan: So I go and sit in the chair and then he's on the couch across the room from the chair and I see my dad. Very interesting. My dad sits on the other end of the couch. He didn't sit directly next to him. And we, okay, he's. Gramps has died. He's passed on. My father, I'd seen him cry maybe one or two times in my life, but I had never heard him or seen him weep in this way.

Ryan: And just to give some context to the listeners and to the viewers, my mother was eight months pregnant at the time when she was raped and killed. Okay, so my dad has experienced pain in his life. My dad and I have experienced tremendous loss. So to say that I had never seen my dad cry or, you know, cry only one or two times, I never saw my dad cry about my mom, ever, ever in my life.

Ryan: So, I see my dad. He's on the couch and he just starts sobbing. He starts talking to him. You can't be gone. I love you. We got to go to O. T. B. My dad and my grandpa love to go to O. T. B. They love to bet horses. And he was like, we got to go to O. T. B. You know, just just saying all of these things that I guess he wish he had an opportunity to say to him.

Ryan: And my dad sat there just weeping. And I remember sitting on the recliner. Just staring. I don't, Mike, I can't even tell you what emotions I was experiencing at that time, but just staring at my dad, watching him weep and speak to my grandfather. It was one of the most profound and powerful moments of my life.

Mike: You know, the reason I liked it so much was. I've experienced the same thing with numerous friends who can't express what they're feeling towards their dads until the funeral of their dads. So not unusual at all. Do you think you just told a story that I'm so sorry what happened your mom the tragic story of your mom and your unborn sister. Do you think that all those stoic car rides you had with him?

Mike: What was that just? The Hoover Dam. I can't let it out. I gotta take care of the family. Like was it if I let it out, man, we're gonna flood the valley or what?

Ryan: Yeah, I don't know the answer to that question Mike. Like, I know that us Kopyar men are incredibly resilient in that times (laugh) to a fault. That's another thing.

Ryan: By getting in touch with my emotions, I've learned. Hey, it's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay to cry. It's okay to say I don't got this. It's okay to say I'm not the tough guy today. I just can't be that tough guy and that's okay. And the people that are around us, they actually want to hear us say that.

Ryan: Because it allows them to be there to support us. But anyways, I don't know what was going through my dad's heart and mind, but I'm incredibly grateful to him that he continued to work 10, 11, 12 hours a day as an assistant store manager at a local supermarket and to continue to provide for me and to support me. I also know that many of those dark nights, those very limited conversation, dinner table moments where it was just my dad and I. Mike it was sitting in that pain that has equipped me to help people as a mental health professional today because I can sit with them and their pain and I'm not afraid of it. I'll sit there with him as long as we need to sit there in it with him.

Ryan: And I think that that helps the people to say, okay, I'm not in this alone and I have somebody else. And if Ryan's not afraid of this pain, maybe I can stay in it long enough so that I don't have to be afraid of it and I can work through it to process it.

Mike: Oh, that's a, wow that's a great point. Do you think that this is what leads some people to turn towards substances?

Ryan: It's what turned me to lead towards substances. Absolutely. Yeah, I struggled with drugs and alcohol for a period of time in my life, and I didn't realize it at the time, but it was all of the pain from the death of my mother and unborn sister. It was the pain of, hey, my mom is not here to give me a hug.

Ryan: And I really could just use a loving hug from the woman that brought me into this world. I didn't realize it, but I was using drugs and alcohol to numb that pain. And it wasn't until a series of rock bottom moments for me that led me to, okay, I got to start this counseling journey. I got to start this healing journey because the drugs and the alcohol are not doing it.

Ryan: Number one, and I'm a man of faith. And so it was, this was not who God created me to be.

Mike: Yeah. How do we, so what do we do? I mean, as guys and women too, but how do we get over the programming that we grew up with? Do you have to, you know, sometimes I think people think psychotherapy is I, as soon as I figured this out, I'll be better.

Mike: And my vision is that we'll wait 80 years and then in our last breaths, we'll go, Oh, now I get it. Do we have, do we have to figure it out before we move forward?

Ryan: Well, it took me 30 years of not figuring it out, and my life changed pretty dramatically after I started to figure it out through my own counseling and my own healing journey.

Ryan: So, I think that that's absolutely vital, and it's absolutely a part of the journey. I think, to your point about psychotherapy, counseling, whatever we want to call it. I really reflect on it as healing journey, and of course, one of the best people to do that with as a counselor, of course, people could look and say, you know, Ryan and Mike, you guys are biased.

Ryan: You're you work in the field. It doesn't necessarily have to be a counselor. Although I think that that's a great person for it to be. You know, it's funny. I was at the gym the other day and some guy came up to me and he said, You know, are you a cop? And I was like no, I'm a counselor, and I get that a lot, you know, are you a cop? Are you a firefighter? (laugh)

Mike: (laugh)

Ryan: I don't think, no, I'm a counselor. And he just kind of like stopped and looked, right. And, you know, but I've had a lot of people, firefighters, police officers, military that, you know, they say to me, man, and this is not, not initially, right, but after the first session or two, like, you know, you're not like a regular counselor.

Ryan: You don't seem like you know, you don't look like kind of fit the profile of a typical counselor. So to any of the men out there that are saying, well, I don't want to work with a woman or I don't want to work with, you know, some whatever guy, you know, it's like, find somebody that you feel comfortable with, whoever that may be.

Ryan: Right. Whether it's a big, bald guy like me, whether it's a woman, you know, whoever it is, find somebody that you feel comfortable with, because that's an integral part of the healing journey because holding it, listen, There's no such thing as pushing it aside. There's only pushing it inside.

Ryan: And when we push it inside, it creates chaos and turmoil inside. I did it for 30 years. Take my advice. Don't don't do it. Get some help.

Mike: You know, that's great advice. I just had my knee replaced and I have a friend of mine who's a doctor. And when I was thinking about getting replaced, I asked him for recommendations.

Mike: And he said, well, do you want somebody who's going to be on time for your appointments or would you like somebody who's going to listen to you? And that was a great question. I said somebody who's listening. He goes, he'll be late. I said, I'm all right with that. Well, because shopping is not a bad thing.

Mike: I'm gonna go shopping a little bit later today with my daughter for a car. You gotta like what you're gonna sit in and that includes a counselor's office.

Ryan: Yes. I love that, Mike. Can I steal that one?

Mike: Well, yes, I'm ultimately stealable. You know, but going back, you know, it's interesting.

Mike: You're preaching to the choir here, right? This is the choir talking to the choir. But, and I'm nodding my head to almost everything you say. Yet, I still hear, there's not a universal understanding that expressing your emotions as a male is a masculine thing to do. I still see men who express their emotions being mocked on television and also by their partners and by their friends. So how do we address those critical relationships with people who don't seem supportive when we actually do connect with what's inside of us?

Ryan: Yeah, that's a good question, Mike. It's also a pretty deep question, and we could go down, try and not go down a rabbit hole. I will say this, If you have a partner or a friend where when you are vulnerable and share your thoughts, feelings and emotions, even if they're not so glamorous, even if they're dark, even if it's some stuff maybe you're not so proud of that you're thinking or feeling, but you're a human being and you're feeling them and it's important to get it out.

Ryan: If you have an individual in your life that puts you down, makes you not feel supported isn't willing to hold that space for you in that regard. It means, likely means one of two things. Number one, they are not comfortable to hold that space for you because it triggers something inside of them.

Ryan: Okay. And maybe there's some of their own healing journey to do there, or, and I don't know if these are mutually exclusive, maybe it could be both, or, you know, there are some people that they like to see us when we're down, they like to see us when we're weak, and it helps to give them a sense of control or power over us.

Ryan: To to put us down when we are vulnerable. And unfortunately, that that happens sometimes in relationships. And so I think in either one of those situations, that's probably not an individual that you want to be spending a good deal of time with, or at the very least, you have an open conversation with them about it.

Ryan: Hey, I came to you the other day, and I shared with you when I was not in such a good place. And. I didn't, I didn't feel like you were there to support me or hold the space for me the way I needed. And I would really like that out of our friendship. How could we make a change? How could things be different?

Ryan: Because otherwise I need to set a healthy boundary on this friendship or this relationship.

Mike: Oh, that's so good. But okay, you, how many years did it take for you to get that down? Yeah. In other words, you just did something that's terrific, but that sense of communication and conflict resolution are also not skills.

Mike: I mean, I grew up in addition to the phrase I used before, my way or the highway, right? Another typical male thing to hear say. So conflict resolution, communication, what other skills do men need to develop in order to get down there and heal those parts of ourselves that need to be healed.

Ryan: Emotional flexibility.

Ryan: Men, give yourself permission, men and women, but men particularly struggle with this. Give yourself permission to not be perfect. And give yourself permission to not have everything figured out. Give yourself permission to say Not, I can't do it. I'm putting this in quotes for the listeners. Not that I can't do it forever, but I can't do it right now in this moment.

Ryan: And maybe that means I need support from somebody else. Maybe that means I can do it just not in this moment and I need to take a step back. I need to rest for five minutes, five hours, 24 hours, whatever the case may be to do a little reset and recharge. That's part of emotional flexibility that I encourage men to learn.

Ryan: The other thing is to say, I'm sorry, I'm not perfect. And it's something that I'm working on. And I can really use your grace and compassion and support as I get through it, right? Hey, I take accountability. I yelled at you the other night. And that was not right of me to do and I take full accountability for that.

Ryan: I'm working on it and be specific about the actionable strategies and steps you're doing, right? I'm working on it with my counselor. I'm reading a book about it and I ask for your grace and compassion as I work through it. So accountability for the learning, yet at the same time, ask for the grace and ask for the compassion.

Ryan: I think men, you will be so surprised at the response from the women in your life. If you say, Hey, I dropped the ball. I take accountability and I'm sorry. But I'm aware of it. I'm working on it. And I ask for your grace and compassion.

Mike: Well, not just everybody in your life, right? Including your boss and your coworkers.

Mike: Think of how un often that happens in the workplace. You know, let's give men a reason for doing this. What happens to your mental and physical health if you hold it all in?

Ryan: Well, for those of us that have struggled in the past or maybe are currently struggling with substance use, that's a big one.

Ryan: And of course we know the deleterious impact that that can have on the physical body. I share about in the book in my first counseling session with my therapist, Billy, I had my arm in the air raised up in the air. And we went through a hypnosis kind of guided healing session, and as the pain started to release from my body, my arm started to go down, and it felt like my arm was up forever, because there was, and it was so stiff, there was so, you know, I believe that we're a mind body soul complex, and if you're not spiritual, that's okay, then a mind body complex, and so I believe that pain, trauma.

Ryan: This is stored non serving energy in the body. It's like a fire burning. We don't want to have a fire burning inside of us. That's not healthy for us. That's not good. Right? So that fire kind of burning. And so if we don't release our emotions in a healthy and regulated way, if we do keep things inside, it's creating a firestorm inside of us of non serving energy that's not going to be good for our mental, emotional, physical, or spiritual health.

Mike: Great way to put it. You know for those of you who are just listening, you, there's this, we're on YouTube too, so you can look at this. Ryan described himself a little bit before. He's a very fit individual, but I'll give you a go away here. On the back cover of your book, you put a picture of yourself like most authors do.

Mike: Only it's a little bit different. Yeah. I assume you chose this picture on purpose.

Ryan: Yes. You know, it was my cousin actually that had suggested adding some kind of picture of me as a little boy. And what that picture represents to me is a compilation of my relationship with my dad because that picture was taken on vacation when I was with my dad.

Ryan: And it also reminds me of my relationship with my papa. And my papa poured so much love and belief into me. My papa was a big dude, New York State Trooper. I don't know how tall he was 6' 2", 6' 3". Maybe he had a big old belly when I was born. And as I knew him all the way up until the time of his death when his health deteriorated.

Ryan: But he was in the army. He was a semi pro baseball player. I mean, he was the man's man, right? Just a charisma for days, and he poured that hope and love and belief into me, and he showed me that it was okay to cry. He was just this tremendous balance between, you know, big, strong, stoic guy, and also would break down midway through a speech.

Ryan: And so that picture really brought back a lot of beautiful memories from my childhood, so that's why I added it in there.

Mike: That's great. Ryan, this has been terrific. The half an hour goes so darn fast.

Mike: For those of you who are listening, you know that there's links to Ryan's books and his work and his website on the podcast.

Mike: Hey, thanks for being with us today.

Ryan: Mike, it was such a great time to share this conversation with you, man. I love your, your energy. We could keep going for...

Mike: I know, I know. That's part of my thought. It's like, how can I make a part two into this as well?

Mike: For those of you listening, if you can, listen in next time.

Mike: Please do and until next time, please stay safe. And if you want to cry, just go ahead and cry.