Mind Over Masculinity
Let’s stop asking men to "man up" and start asking how we can lift them up. After all, mental health is not just a women’s issue or a men’s issue—it’s a human issue.
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Mind Over Masculinity
From Stress to Strength: Redefining Modern Masculinity with Tim Thomas
What does it truly mean to be a man today? This question launches a transformative conversation with Tim Thomas, special forces veteran and expert in mental resilience who has spent a decade transforming lives through pioneering wellness initiatives.
Tim challenges conventional notions of masculinity, revealing that true masculine power manifests as happiness and generosity rather than emotional suppression. Drawing from his personal experiences in high-stress environments, he explains how men can handle almost any challenge except feeling isolated—a powerful insight that resonates throughout our discussion.
We explore why rest and recovery remain critically undervalued aspects of masculine strength. Tim shares eye-opening connections between chronic stress, hormonal health, and emotional regulation, explaining how sustained high cortisol levels literally "cash in your tomorrows to live today." This physiological framework offers men a concrete understanding of their experiences beyond simply "toughing it out."
The conversation takes a practical turn as Tim guides listeners through a transformative breathwork exercise that creates immediate shifts in energy and emotional state. His "breath of possibility" technique provides an accessible tool for instant regulation without special equipment or training. Tim also reframes fear as something that ultimately seeks to paralyze us, with the antidote being action rather than courage.
Perhaps most impactfully, Tim shares how losing external markers of success forced him to recognize that true power comes
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Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Mind Over Masculinity. I'm your host, avik, and today we'll start a bit different. We'll start with something, a question. So I'll tell you what. Like, what do you think I mean? What does it truly mean to a man today? What do you think I mean? What does it truly mean to a man today? Strength, resilience, leadership, or maybe it's all of those right? Maybe it can, you can share your thoughts into the social media and and other podcasting platforms and, um, it's great. Let me also understand. Like, what do you think? So, uh, mind over masculinity is where we redefine the strength from inside out. So, uh, and today, today we are diving into a conversation that's a kind of, you can say, long overdue. I mean masculinity. It's a word that carries a lot of weight, so some see it's a badge of honor, others find it a kind of burden. But here's the real thing comes, or the real question comes is what does healthy masculinity actually look like? Yeah, and who better to explore this than our guest today, tim thomas?
Speaker 2:so welcome to the show, tim uh avic, so great to be here, really looking forward to diving into one of my favorite subjects with you and your audience lovely lovely, lovely.
Speaker 1:That's really great. And, dear listeners, before we start I'd quickly love to introduce you to Tim. Tim has spent a decade, I could say, on the frontiers of veteran recovery, mental resilience and the wellness research like helping transform countless lives. Like helping transform countless lives and he has raised over $1 million for groundbreaking mental health initiatives. And a master of great work sleep science and also the emotional resilience. So like from special forces operator to a leader in human optimization, tim has lived through extreme challenges and come out stronger. So we'll get to learn a lot of things. Definitely we'll discuss in detail. So welcome to the show again.
Speaker 2:Avik, thank you so much, and I might add that I'm a father of two as well, yeah exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's a very great part of it. Yeah, and uh. So, like I was mentioning, like um, breaking the old uh mold of masculinity, like uh, uh, when, when you hear, uh that, the word masculinity, what's the first thing that comes to your mind?
Speaker 2:when, if you can share. Sure, I, when I think masculinity, I often think it's done wrong. And, uh, what I tell my 20 year old son is a man's masculinity done right. You know, it brings about happiness and generosity, and, and that, for a man, a man's happiness and generosity is relative to how truly powerfully feels. And that power really needs to start with us over here. It actually needs to start with our bodies.
Speaker 2:And it's quite easy to prove, you know, if you look at the opposite, if you see an unhappy, stingyy man, he doesn't feel powerful. In fact, uh, he's got a. For him to get power, he's got to play games. So, for me, the idea of toxic masculinity, it's based on a man without power playing games. And people get stuck in that and they go well. We don't want to repeat that. So let's, let's put these you know things in place and not let that happen again. But you're, you're, I think it's not a blanket rule.
Speaker 2:Um, a truly powerful man doesn't need another person to feel powerful. They can self-generate. Um, and you know that's happening when they're happy and they're generous. Uh, and, and a classic example it couldn't be better timing. We've just had a cyclone make landfall in Australia, where I am, and this morning there were men driving around and also walking around with wheelbarrows, with chainsaws, clearing people's driveways, and they were just out there. They were happy to do it and it was almost, and they had these big smiles on their faces and it's almost like they had to wait for some chaos in nature to happen for these men to come alive and be generous, feel needed to do something. So that literally happened today.
Speaker 1:Amazing, I have to say that's really amazing. And so, like when we're talking about the masculinity, like for decades, men have been fed this idea that masculinity is all about toughness, shutting down emotions and pushing through pain, handling everything alone. So, from your experience working with the veterans and the mental health, how do you see this outdated definition affecting men today?
Speaker 2:Okay, we can deal with anything, but we can't deal with feeling alone. Yeah, and we can deal with pain, we can deal with hardships, we can deal with physical toughness, but we, around our hearts, and we're just waiting for another man that has walked the same path to speak those unspoken words and that all of a sudden just break those rocks around the hearts, and they can, and and the isolation gets broken. Um, because I, I do think there is a time and a place for you know developing your physicality, you know pushing through, but if that's your only option, um, you end up cashing in your tomorrows to live today and you end up not feeling anything because you've got so many rocks around your heart. So if you see another person, another man especially, feeling something, then to you that occurs as that person hasn't worked hard enough. Ah, okay.
Speaker 2:You know they haven't earned their stripes. So so I I I got a special forces background and I used to sing. I like singing, right Uh. But all the men around me mistook that as that he hasn't worked hard enough, so we have to break him even harder.
Speaker 1:Exactly that. That's, that's uh, that's true, that's very true. Yeah, also on this, like what's a moment in your life that forced you to redefine what strength and masculinity really mean?
Speaker 2:yeah, the ability to transmute, and meaning that the ability to turn lead into gold. Okay, transmutation, um, and the way I say it to veterans is this you might not think you're special, but I bet you've been through some crap, and it's our job as men to turn that crap into fertilizer. You know, it might take you a week, a month, a decade to turn that crap into fertilizer, and and the and the stinkiest crap becomes the worst fertilizer, becomes the best fertilizer, and it's it's once you, once you transmute that thing that, uh, you didn't want to talk about, that you were ashamed of because it was overwhelming, but once you transmute that you get the healing you need. Um, you are then able to serve others and help them get through their crap, if, if, if, that makes sense. So.
Speaker 2:So the very thing I didn't want to talk about my failures became the very thing that allowed other men to be free, and so I used to run these men's groups where I would uh, bring people in, they and they would be interviewed, so they just share their story and so many other men in that circle. Their jaw would kind of pop open and they'd say things like wow, I thought I was the only one. So, exactly, masculinity, there's courage and strength comes. It comes in a lot of different forms, um, you know, you might have the courage and strength to you know, like, like soldiers die for your country, but do you have the courage and strength to speak to what's really going on inside of you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, true, very true, yeah, and that's a great, great way to think. Also, I say and uh, so sometimes, like uh, I mean, which I love about uh, your work, is your focus on rest and recovery as well, because, uh, uh, most men don't even think about this stuff. We believe that, yes, we can do everything, everything, we can do it. So, in a world that glorifies grind culture, why do you think the rest, uh, one of the most underrated tools for the resilience?
Speaker 2:you're absolutely right. This world um really gives social credit to someone who goes oh, he only got four hours sleep last night and he's still turning up. You know, look at that and and life just turns into a crap eating competition. Look at him. He's eaten 18 buckets of crap seven days a week, you know, and what ends up how?
Speaker 2:I mean here the thing that the most truly successful people understand the importance and discipline of sleep and the way I explain it to people is that as much as this world says you know, power on, grind away, hit the accelerator, no one's talking about how to hit the brake, how to slow down, how to rest and recover, and it's not two separate things. Working is not separate to resting. And the way I explain it to people, advik is. I think I get them to picture a pyramid. The top of the pyramid, you're achieving your goals, you're making your money, you're hitting your targets, all the things that you want to achieve you're achieving. But at the bottom of the pyramid is your rest, recovery and healing art forms. And if you're not developing the bottom of your pyramid, you can. You can maintain the top with youthful vigor. But then there comes a time where people start saying oh, you're over the hill at 30. You're over the hill at 40. You're over. You're definitely over the hill at 50. And I'm here to tell you if you can maintain. The people that work with me in my business are the ones that see the financial and family impact of quality rest. If you want to make more money, if you want to connect more, better to your family, if you want to make more money, if you want to connect more, better to your family, you get a really good sleep. Discipline and and and otherwise. I'll tell you the mechanics of it.
Speaker 2:If you keep pushing hard, your cortisol level goes up. It's a stress level. And cortisol is good, right, it's actually meant to be there and we're supposed to use it. But if you use it for more than a season, if you're burning the candle at both ends for more than a season, you end up cashing in your tomorrows to live today. And what does that look like? High levels of cortisol for too long drives your testosterone into the dirt.
Speaker 2:What does that look like in real life? You're always tired, but you can't sleep. You have extreme cravings for sugar, junk food, alcohol. You're overly reactive. You don't think it's your problem. Everyone else just seems like a cactus. Everyone else is in a hole in traffic. So adrenal fatigue is a real, real thing and every guy, if you ask them, is testosterone important? They'll say yes, it's important. Okay, but when have you had it checked last? Oh, never, well, but. But? But even a GP is not, in my experience, not particularly equipped to balance your hormones. You've actually got to go see an endocrinologist to get yourself out of that adrenal fatigue, because in my case with the veterans, they would often get misdiagnosed Adrenal fatigue, always being tired, always being cranky, and you end up using anger as your source of energy and then it gets diagnosed as PTSD, not adrenal fatigue, and the hormones don't get balanced. So I feel like I tangented a bit there. Advic, am I answering your question?
Speaker 1:yeah, no, no, so, okay, I, I got it. Got it now, yeah, yeah, so, um, that that's true. I mean the stress and, uh, uh, this anxiety will definitely be there. I totally agree with this because, and also like you, have trained in some of the most high stress environment possible, which definitely you know better, you have seen the scenarios. So, like you, you know that what's it's like to face fear head on. So, but here's the one thing which I believe that most guys, like me or other other guys don't realize that fear isn't, um, like just in life or death situations, so like it's. It's kind of like it's in speaking up at work, setting setting the boundaries, showing up for the vulnerability, so all of this. So how can Breathe, work help men to manage?
Speaker 2:all of this. Well, advik, you're absolutely right. Whether it's a deadline or an ambush, the amount of cortisol that's going through your system, you've got your survival attached to that and that's a real thing. If your survival is attached to something, it doesn't matter. If it's a deadline or the threat is real or imaginary. The response is the same. Okay, so, and and and you?
Speaker 2:The first part of your question was about fear, and I'll just explain that. You think, as a soldier, I'd get used to fear. That I never did. But because I was exposed to it so often, I started to understand the mechanics of fear. And it's really interesting. You should ask this because I discovered fear has a goal and its goal isn't to scare you. Fear's ultimate goal is to actually paralyze you, to immobilize you, to stop you from even trying, immobilize you to stop you from even trying. So when you understand fear's ultimate goal is to stop you doing anything, the opposite of fear isn't love. The opposite of fear is action. It's only when you take action that the fear gets dispelled. Conversely, inaction, procrastination, it makes the fear grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. And the great thing on how breath work breath work is an action. Yeah, the thousands of years the Chinese have been saying if you can control your breath, you can control everything Exactly. And I would love I would, if time permits, to show you, avik and your audience how to completely relax your body in three breaths.
Speaker 1:Exactly. That's great, so would you like to do it now?
Speaker 2:Whenever you want to do it, just allow maybe five minutes at any given time for us to do it, so we can do it right now as well, yeah.
Speaker 2:Sure, Okay, great, let's do it. So breath work is easy. The only thing hard about it, Avik, is that you've been doing it your whole life and I just asked you and your audience to consider the possibility that you've been doing it wrong. So these three breaths aren't hard, but because you haven't taken a full breath, I just need to take a little bit of time for you to breathe fully. And, and when we do something new for the first time, the breath is really nourishing. But if you haven't done it before, I have to sort of ask a few little questions just to let it in. Okay, to unlock any barriers. Now, a little caveat to this don't be doing this sort of driving, cutting up carrots. This is something that you need to be seated in a supported environment. So the three questions are this Avik, Do you give your body full permission to be fully nourished by your breath?
Speaker 1:yes fantastic.
Speaker 2:Now, abic, do you give your mind full permission to be fully nourished by your breath? Awesome, and I'm obviously saying this to you and the listeners to uh, do you give your unconscious mind full permission to be fully nourished by your wonderful breath? Exactly, yeah, awesome. So I'm going to use all my breath work coach superpowers to help you with this. I'm going to be with you the whole time and it starts really simply simply breathe in and out. Okay, well done.
Speaker 2:Being aware of your breath, that is the first step to your peace and power. Because what happens, avik, if we focus on something outside of ourselves, we lose connection with our breath. So mental health, for me, isn't so much a mental problem, it's a disconnect from your body problem isn't so much a mental problem, it's a disconnect from your body problem. So if you're focused on some threat so much, you might see someone going and they're breathing like that because they're so disconnected from their body and breath, right. So being aware of your simple inhale and exhale creates that first step to peace and power. So well done. The next thing we're going to do is we're going to breathe in, but then we're going to breathe in again and again and again and again and again, cool, cool, all right. So you ready? So blow it out, blow it out, blow it out, blow it out, blow it out and then breathe in, then breathe in more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, and just let it out, and just let it out. Now, avik, did you notice in the top third of your lungs a little bit more space opening up? Okay, fantastic, all right. Now, for the sake of giving it a word, your first inhale and exhale, we'll call that your primary inhale. When you breathe in again and again, that's your secondary inhale, so primary, secondary. So we are going to smooth that out. We're going to breathe in again and again. That's your secondary inhale, so primary, secondary. So we are going to smooth that out. We're going to breathe in, but then automatically breathe in more, more, more, more, more, cool, cool. So blow it out, blow it out, shake it out. I encourage you to blow it out, shake it out and then breathe in and then in, in, in, feel how you can suck it in up on that third and then just let that go. Nice work Now.
Speaker 2:What I love about my job, avik, is I get to show people just how wonderful their body is. And what you don't know is that in your two fingers and thumbs, you know where your pinch. If you want, if you probably can't see the video, but if you were to pinch something with your two fingers and thumbs, that's a little power button. So what we're going to do is we're going to blow it out. But as we breathe in, when we get to our secondary inhale, we're going to hit these little pinch buttons, these little turbo buttons, and that's going to boost our secondary inhale. You cool with that? Yeah, so everyone, blow it out, blow it out, shake it out, start breathing in, hit those power buttons, open that chest, inhale and, if it feels good, let it out with a sigh.
Speaker 2:Nice work, my friend. Did you notice when you hit that little turbo button, you got a bit of a boost in your secondary inhale? Yes, nice work. Who knew right? Our bodies are incredible. Yes, and we're going to juice that secondary inhale up even more. So we're going to double the speed of the inhale and we're going to snort through our nose. So our mouth is going to be closed, so we're going to go and really snort as rapidly as possible, because behind our noses we have sinus cavities and they're about the size of a walnut, have sinus cavities, and they're about the size of a walnut. And one thing my coach used to teach me when I was a professional fighter that before you do a combination, tim, do a big snort, okay, cause that will suck air over your sinuses straight into your brain and make you sharp, okay. Now, whether that's scientifically true or not, I don't know, but it worked in combat and you'll notice you'll be able to get another experience from this. So we're going to have our turbo buttons ready and get ready to snort and look at the ceiling. You got that. So we're going to double the speed of it and look to the ceiling. You cool with that, all right. So blowing it out, out, out, out, out, out. Start just blowing it out, feel those turbo buttons, start breathing in and then double the speed. Look to the ceiling Open, open, open. Now hold it, wriggle your shoulders, wriggle your shoulders Back and forth, wriggle your shoulders, feel your shoulders opening up, feel your chest opening up and if it feels good, let it out with a sigh. Ah, ah, ah, ah. Well done.
Speaker 2:Now, often when we do this, when we breathe correctly, our teeth start showing because we start smiling. Okay, we, we activate not just more energy from our breath. Proper breath gives you proper alignment. Your body's energy system runs of nerves and those nerves they're like hose pipes. So you know, if you pinch a garden hose you won't have the water flowing through. When we're hunched over, when we're not breathing properly, we're pinching off the energy system that we have. So when we breathe in and really snort that air, we open up not just the lungs but we open up the space. We're not stepping in our own garden hose, so to speak. Does that make sense? Yeah, okay, and I call this breath the breath of possibility.
Speaker 2:Okay, because when there's stuff in my head that I don't want there, these little pinch points on my thumb and fingers I will discreetly I'm a human. When I'm in the real world, things can annoy me. So if let's just say I'm frustrated because I'm waiting too long for something, I will discreetly pinch my fingers together, snort through my nose, hold it, move it around the place, open up my structure, push that energy through, and that brings me back into balance, back into connection with my body, back into my own power. Okay, so that allows me to be happy and generous when I'm connected to my power, and so I just encourage everybody to have that little pinch point sort of breath as part of your daily routine. If you've forgotten everything that Avik and me have said and you remember this breath, this inhale, snort, then that's going to serve you really well.
Speaker 2:Now I'm going to give Avik a little link to this series of uh breath so you can watch this again. And and it actually goes deeper, so I've shown you the breath of possibility. This, the breath of possibility, goes into the breath of peace. But you'll have to watch the video, uh, to see what I mean.
Speaker 2:But, avik, we're just going to do this one last time, okay, and this time I really want you and your audience members to blow it all the way out. And then we're going to really hit those power buttons, snort and look at the ceiling, cool, cool. So blowing it out, out, out, out, out, out, shake it out, shake it out, blow it out, shake it out. Start breathing in, hit the power buttons really, turbo, smart, open, open, open. Feel that chest opening, feel that chest opening like it's a flower, feel the warmth of the sun. Wriggle your shoulders, wriggle your shoulders, move the air around, wriggle your shoulders and I encourage you, if it feels good, let it out with a big sigh you if it feels good, let it out with a big sigh and and, uh, if, if, audience members, if you're listening, avik has got a really big smile on his face and he's yawning a bit too, which is which is really good too.
Speaker 2:There's that unlocks trapped energy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly Wow.
Speaker 2:Amazing yeah.
Speaker 1:The listeners. Do try this. Definitely. You will definitely love it, because I also did with Tim right now and I can feel a bit of change for sure. And if you obviously if you do it on a regular basis and continuously, you'll definitely feel that change. So I really feel that. So that's amazing, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, free energy, my friend. I mean, if we don't access it inside ourselves like this, we end up paying for it. You know how many coffees do we buy? Energy drinks.
Speaker 2:I was on a lot of pharmaceuticals when I said I couldn't sleep properly. You know, and you know, if I can't do what you do or your listeners Abic, but if I can help them sleep better, then they're going to do what they do even better. Um and and for me, it's a really powerful thing to do breath work, going to sleep, but also breath work getting out of bed, and and hence my company. It provides this online service. Uh, you go into breath work in bed.
Speaker 2:Just go into your phone app store, breathwork in bed. It'll ask when you want to sleep, when do you want to wake up, and we take care of the rest because people like you, you're already busy enough, okay? So to have a little notification falling out of your phone, where you just tap it and it goes breathe in, breathe out, a certain way, and it creates those wonderful chemicals, wonderful chemicals. And we are doing a 28-day free giveaway as well. So if you go into Breathwork in bed in your phone, 28 days free, you will be able to have those two super, super powerful micro habits and improve your immediately and pharmaceutically free improve your sleep. And just watch once your sleep improves, your relationships improves, your finances improves, everything just gets better and better exactly lovely, so that that's really great and, uh, it sounds like so.
Speaker 1:So we have. We have talked about masculinity, resilience, connection, and also we did a practical session as well. So if a man listening to this and wants to start their own journey towards becoming stronger, more balanced version of himself, where should they start?
Speaker 2:Start underneath your own skin, because I had to lose. I had a divorce about five years ago. I had to lose all my money, my house, my home, regular access to my kids to realize that everything outside of my own skin I cannot control and I would waste a lot of energy trying to control it and it can be taken away. But the good news is underneath your skin. You have so much power there and so much say, and so for me, breath work and getting my sleep in order was the turning point for me, because I was already working hard enough. But when I improved my sleep, it's like it improved everything. And guess what, guess what got attacked when I had all this crap going through my head. My sleep got attacked.
Speaker 2:And just a fun little data point sleep poor people have a two to 300% increase in mental health issues Two, three hundred percent increase if you're sleeping poorly. So, conversely, as I see it, if you're sleeping well, you have a two to three hundred percent increase in functionality. And this is what happened to me when I was working with veterans. I noticed that if I could improve their sleep and these are these are veterans with pretty severe PTSD If I could improve their sleep. It's like this golden compass just turned on inside of them and they naturally knew where to go next.
Speaker 2:And so I started seeing like the best thing I could do for anybody is help them get a good night's sleep, because they've got everything they need inside of them. But it's really hard to access that when you're in a state of fatigue, because I know when I was in a state of fatigue I was so reactionary I'd create more problems than I could solve and then I'd have to drink a lot of alcohol to somehow find comfort. So if I was to point anyone in any direction, start underneath your own skin, start with your breath. You can get immediate results when you start in that space.
Speaker 1:I understand. That's lovely. Yeah, that's really great. So thank you, thank you, team. It's really a great conversation and it is powerful. So you have given us real and actionable tools that guys can start today and reclaim their strength like not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. And so, dear listeners, if you took anything from this episode, remember that strength isn't about suppressing your emotions or pushing through that pain alone. It's all about knowing when to rest, when to connect and when to challenge yourself to grow. So, if this episode has resonated with you, share it with a friend, family or someone who you love the most, and let's, let's, keep redefining what it means to be a man. So, with this hope, until next time, breathe deeply. I will say so generally, I mentioned stay healthy, but here I will say breathe deeply, rest well and stay strong. So, with this, thank you so much, thank you.
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