Ep. 131: Courage Casts - The Risk of Opening Up

In this episode, Josh talks about the reality of vulnerability, especially for men, and why it’s often harder than it sounds. When opening up is met with judgment, silence, or shame, it can shut people down and reinforce the belief that emotions should stay buried. This conversation explores the importance of choosing the right people to open up to, understanding what real strength looks like, and why processing emotions is critical for growth and resilience. 

Transcript

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Welcome to the Courage to Live Podcast. My name is Josh Bitsko, and I'm a retired police captain with 24 years of experience in Las Vegas. Currently, I travel the country and I teach people about courage, resilience, and leadership. In today's Courage Cast, uh I'm going to talk about something I've mentioned before. I often talk about how important it is, especially as a man, to be vulnerable. It's a big part of the class that I teach, right? I get up in front of hundreds of people and I share my story. I share what I've been through. And there's oftentimes I become emotional. Um, I mean, hell, if you've listened to this podcast, you know I become emotional on there as well or on here. But think that it's easy to say, it's really hard for me to do to get up. I especially, I mean, I put in the work for myself on myself. I'm more open emotionally, but it doesn't mean it's easy. And I saw that there was a recent study that 65% of men say that the one time they opened up emotionally, they were met with shame, judgment, or silence. And one of the things I talk about in my class is when somebody is being vulnerable with you, it the biggest thing you can do to shut them down is to judge them. And that is such a huge statistic because if if we're wanting, you know, especially first responders, but really any men, to be able to open up more emotionally because it's good for their mental health. But when you are and you're met with judgment or shame or just silence, that doesn't feel good. In fact, it makes it worse. It makes you, honestly, for me, when and then that's happened to me, just makes me feel dumb for sharing that. Like I regret even opening up and sharing what I was talking about because you know, I think there still is this expectation that as a as a man, you have to be, you know, able to deal with these hard emotions and just not let it affect you and really just never share, uh, being you know overly stoic, which I will say the word stoic is often misused uh because I have read like meditations by Marcus Aurelius and I I have delved into the whole stoic philosophy, and it is not not feeling your emotions, it's just more not letting your emotions control you, um, knowing that it's always okay. However, you feel is the the right way to feel it's okay. You have no control over that. But 100% of the time you have control over what you do, how you act. But if you are one of those 65% of men that have dealt with that when you open up emotionally, you need to just take an honest look about who you were opening, opening up emotionally to. Um, because I'll tell you that that person does not have your best interests at heart if you are opening up emotionally and then they're judging you. And you know what? I'll also add this caveat. If if you're feeling judged based on a facial expression or, you know, just what they ask for what they say, ask for clarification. Like, hey, when I shared this, um, I felt judged, and here is why, and see what they say. Because maybe because this might be the first time you're opening up emotionally, you misinterpreted um what they were doing. But oftentimes, no, I I understand that this is true and this actually happens. So if if you do feel judged and they were in fact judging you or shaming you uh because you opened up, you need to really consider uh cons reconsider who you're opening up to because there is value in that. There's value with processing through your emotions and being able to move forward. Thank you for listening to the Courage Cast today. If you liked what I heard talked about, please share it with a friend, subscribe, leave a review, and I appreciate you spending time with me today.