Barking Space

At the beginning of November, I dedicated this year’s Movember campaign to my dear friend JP who passed away earlier this year. As I have mentioned in previous entries, JP was a very important part of my support network – and I wanted to spend a moment to talk about that in the context of how important it is to share.

Opening up to someone in times of need is not always the easiest thing – especially for men. I referenced numbers in a previous post about how so many men die relatively young from preventable causes, how poor men’s health taxes the system and how a significant number of men delay seeking help for years in some cases. Furthermore, we pass these traits onto the next generations, continuing the cycle.

In my last article, I talked about the ALEC method:

• Ask
• Listen
• Encourage Action
• Check In

Having the courage to talk to someone about things that may be bothering you is an admirable thing – but it also takes courage to listen. As “fixers” and “doers” it’s hard for a lot of men to truly listen to another’s pain – because the tendency is to want to fix it. However, this isn’t always the way to go about it.

JP and I used to make time to check in on each other – usually during commutes home from work. He called it “windshield time” – and it was a safe space to share various things and converse about how life was going. While we never officially established any rules, per se, we took the time to listen to each other and offer advice when it was looked for.

One of the most important aspects of our chats (and frankly, the message I want readers to take away from this post) was that we each knew that there were things that we couldn’t solve for each other – and that it was okay to listen and encourage the other person to look for professional help for a more positive outcome.

I think that being comfortable with this concept would save a lot of lives – and I would be happy to talk it through with anyone that wasn’t sure of how to go about it.

I miss JP dearly – but I am also lucky that I have a close circle of wonderful and attentive friends that I can speak to in a similar fashion (including talking through the grief of JP’s passing) – and I’ll even sometimes speak to him in the car (because that also helps me settle myself).

Movember helps to normalize conversations by offering tools and scripts to people to ease them into talking more comfortably about mental health. Doing this allows them to contribute far more than crisis intervention – they foster prevention focus. Evidence-based research helps to design programs that work for men in a gender-aware way in order to break down stereotypes.

I’m proud to be fundraising for them. If you would like to help out, you can do so here.

Filed under: Announcements, Convos, Friends, General Dialogue, Movember | Tagged: anxiety, Brother, Cancer, depression, Friend, Friends, Health, Life, Love, Memorial, men, Men's Health, Men's Mental Health, Mental Health, Movember, movember 2025, Prostate Cancer, Remembrance, suicide prevention, testicular cancer |