💪 Men's Mental Health After Divorce: Unlocking Strength & Self-Discovery || DPTSP #092 || David M. Webb

[00:00:00] All right, here we go. Welcome to the Don't Pick the Scab Podcast. Today, we have the pleasure of speaking with Ives T. Makanya, a remarkable individual originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ives is currently the Supervisor for Quality Assurance at Thermo Fisher Scientific and has an impressive background in the pharmaceutical industry. With a master's degree in mental health counseling, he's dedicated to helping men overcome their mental health challenges, focused on issues like stress, depression, and depression.

[00:00:30] and low self-esteem. Join us as we explore how Ives' unique insights and experiences can empower our listeners to heal and embrace self-discovery and thrive after life challenges. So tell us about yourself, Ives, and we'll go from there. I've got some questions for you.

[00:01:00] Welcome to the Don't Pick the Scab Podcast with the premise of connecting men over 40 with the tools and community to thrive in their divorce recovery either before, during, or during, or during the pandemic.

[00:01:40] or after a divorce. During the pandemic, I worked for Moderna and now I am with Thermo Fisher. And I'm also a therapist. I went back to school for my master's degree in clinical counseling and I became a therapist. And I work in the state of Rhode Island. And on top of that, I'm also a transformational coach. So I also help people outside of Rhode Island who want to work with me on a coaching basis.

[00:02:09] I'm also a transformational coach and also run my own podcast, Rising and Thriving. Busy, man. I thought that was busy. What are some of the most common emotional challenges that men face after divorce and how can they start to address them? The way I'm going to speak about it is from my own experience. I think for what I see in a lot of men, they love to suffer in silence. Right.

[00:02:36] So the emotional part thinks they tend to internalize it and not let it go. So for me, what I decided early on was to seek help. But I guess it's very difficult, even with the men that I help, that I work with going through a divorce or even difficult time. It's very difficult for them to come and say, you know what, I need help in this. Women are very easy. Like they will tell you what it is that's bothering them.

[00:03:04] And they're very proactive on this. But men, it's very difficult. Right. So it takes a lot for a man to come and sit down and admit that I have a problem. So even when somebody like and when you talk about divorce is also attached to a sense of pride. Right. You know what? I was this is what I created. There's something I create. I created my family, my energy, my attention.

[00:03:30] My my focus was on making sure that this family is well taken care of. So everything about you goes into it. So when that doesn't work out, instead of an internal looking at it as if, you know what? It's something that happened. It's difficult. Yeah, it's difficult. Yes. But that's something that happened. A lot of men look at it as if I am the failure. I fail. I am the failure.

[00:03:59] And that's where I think that's a big part where that's pretty much where they have a difficulty kind of detaching themselves from the situation. And when they're only looking at it from the perspective of they are the failure and that's when the problem is not to come. So emotionally, I think the first thing that I say for everybody, seek help.

[00:04:22] And I know that for a lot of men, it's very difficult to put themselves down or to admit that there's a problem. Because for a lot of men, I'm the problem solver. I'm not supposed to have problem. I'm not supposed to have trouble. I'm supposed to dominate my environment and figure it out. But sometimes figuring it out means that, you know what, I have to stop and ask somebody else how we did it.

[00:04:52] Sometimes it also means, you know what, hey, you know what, you professional here. Let me sit with you and unload this excess of emotion and negativity and anger that I have. So to me, the first step is seek help. Get to the point where you seek help and see how it goes. What about the F word, forgiveness? What part does that play? That was so tough for me. That was tough for men.

[00:05:20] And it's easy to say forgiveness is for you. But to let go of the pain that someone caused you is so hard sometimes. But I'm here to tell you, once you let it go, man, it is exhilarating. It does. It's hard to let it go. Speak to that for me. It is very hard. You have, to me, a lot of people say, yeah, the forgiveness is not for you. It's not for the other person. It's for you. It's for it to liberate you from all this.

[00:05:49] It's easier said than done. For me, I felt the way I approached it when I went through my divorce. And I wanted to break off from the anger and everything. The way I said it is that forgiveness is also not something that's going to happen today. It's a constant process. It happens. You have to work on it every single day. I'm still working on it today.

[00:06:20] Even if I've been divorced for seven years, I'm still working on it today. Every day. Every single day when I wake up, you know what? I forgive. It just became such a ritual so that I'm not held by the past, my past, or anything that happened before.

[00:06:42] And even the future action comes when it comes and she does something that, you know, we probably don't see eye to eye about a certain situation. Or we don't speak a certain way. We don't communicate it the right way. Instead of being pissed off at the person, you know what? I've already let that go.

[00:07:06] You know, this person, because you work on it often every day, that person doesn't have control over you. And I always tell the people that counsel is you have to be able to get to a position where you are the one controlling yourself. Right? Because if someone has control over what you think, how you feel, and how you behave, basically that person controls every part of your life.

[00:07:35] Because whatever this person is going to do is going to basically change how you think, behave. And that person really commands you. She has total control over your life. So what you have to do, what forgiveness does, at least what it did for me, is switching that control back to me. So that what the other person is going to do doesn't affect me somehow. Yes, it can affect me. I can have a strong feeling about it.

[00:08:03] I can still control the other area, my thoughts and my behavior. Right? So that what I do and how I want to show up is not depending on somebody else's reaction or what somebody else's has done or said. And to me, that's what forgiveness has done and working with forgiveness has done. Right? As I said, it's a process. And for myself, it's a process that I work on every single day.

[00:08:29] It's almost like you give yourself control back in order to proceed from your recovery. Yes. So men, because we're men, divorce takes a toll on our self-esteem. How can a man reverse that and rebuild that self-esteem? Because it takes a hit. Yes, it does take a hit. As I said, you put everything on you. Now you're looking at it. You know what? I'm a failure. That's a hit on your self-esteem. You also look at everybody else around you.

[00:08:59] Basically, the circle of friends that you created when you were married, some of them you don't even have access to them. Right? Because those are the friends that you had when you were married. When you're not married, you completely caught up from that circle of friends. That support system. Right? So, to me, self-esteem starts by remembering or going back to what you used to be. Not to recreate that person. Right?

[00:09:29] But just to note, to reconnect with the things that made you. The things that made you happy. So you have aptitude. You have gifts and stuff like that. Because when you're married, all your gifts and ideas all focused on the family unit. But before that, your focus and energy and gifts were spread out. Like you can apply it to here. You can apply it to there. You can apply it to there.

[00:09:58] And I gave you satisfaction. And you were getting feedback from all those different places. And that helped your self-esteem. So going back to that place. Going back to that place where you have control of that. First of all, you have control of your emotion. And now, you're going back to the place where, you know what? Those are the things that I used to do. Right? Right? Those are the things that I used to love. Okay? Or get into new things that you did not know that you were doing before. For instance, for me, I got into motorcycling.

[00:10:28] Motorcycling. And that was the best thing ever. Right? Because those are new. That was something new that I always wanted to do. And once I got into it, that kind of reconnected me to all my past desire of wanting to be free. And my self-esteem grew from there. Because I was also getting feedback. Getting created new circle of friends. And that also gave me feedback.

[00:10:56] So now, also getting to... I think I started... Personally, I did a lot of new things. Anything that I could think about, I tried. Some did not work out. But some did. But I wanted to get back to the place where I enjoy life. To the fullest. And I wanted to reconnect with that person that I know I was. Right? That person that...

[00:11:26] And then that person that back then, that I was before marriage. And because when you're married, you change yourself. To adapt to this person that you chose. Which is normal. Right? Because everything... Your reaction. The way you think. The way you approach life. Even the way you look at life.

[00:11:52] Now is in line with what the other person that you're with is. Or your wife, your partner. Right? So now it's okay. Now you're by yourself. Where's that feedback is going to come from? Is you creating this new environment. Where you're free to try things. You're free to look at things from your own perspective. And you're getting feedback from the people for this new environment. That kind of boosts your self-esteem as well.

[00:12:20] And also the part where, you know what? Decide just to be... If you have kids, decide to be the best dad that you can be. Right? For sure. Right? So that's... I think that's where you get the most... At least for me, that's where I get the most boost. And the thing is, a lot of people confuse. Being the best dad that you can be is not the one competing with mom. Right? Mom's going to do what she has to do.

[00:12:50] But understanding your role as a man. And how you approach parenting as well is important. So it's not about competing with what mom has done. If mom bought, I don't know, an iPad to the children. You wanted to buy two iPads. You show that, you know what? I have to... I love you more. No. That doesn't work. It's not going to work. No, that's not going to work. Show yourself. My goal was, I want my children to know who I am.

[00:13:19] I want to show them the person that I truly am. And that person... When I was married, I wasn't that person. But when I came out, when I divorced, the decision was to become that person. And I wanted to show this person to my children. And I wanted to be the type of father that they can be proud of. And that's how I decided to go back in this journey of transformation. Changing completely who I was. Reconnecting with things. Understanding my values.

[00:13:49] Understanding... Creating new relationships. Trying new different things. So that I could understand who I truly was. And understand my purpose. And so that I can show that to my kids. And you know what? Even if dad, mom and dad didn't work out. But dad turned out to be the person I'm very proud of. And that's my goal. That's what I've been working towards. I'm not here to... I'm not trying to compete with their mom. Because that's a losing battle.

[00:14:18] What she can do for them is totally different than what I can do for me. What I can do for them. So figuring out exactly what you can do for your kids as a man is very important. So once you started doing that, start approaching things from that perspective, I think your self-esteem is also going to get a big boost. Tell your story real quick. We'll depart here. I did. My ex did not like me to eat Italian food because it came to my pores

[00:14:46] and it messed up with my chemistry or something. So while we were married, I didn't eat Italian food. But man, when I got divorced, I had Italian food almost every day. So, you know, I can identify with trying new stuff and old stuff. It's especially something she didn't like. I even had a little bit of a caveat to it. Yeah. So how can men gain their identity?

[00:15:14] I went from being a divorcee to being single. How do you make that transformation? You talk about transformation. How do you get that transformation? Because we become divorcee for a long time sometimes. Yeah. And that's the thing. Some people get stuck there. And to me, when someone gets stuck there, it just shows me that they don't have a sense of direction. You have to decide what it is that you want to see.

[00:15:45] Right? You have to understand that everything starts with you. And even when I work with my client, that's my message. You have the power to change. You have the power to completely turn your life around. But it has to start with you. Right? So for me, the identity that I wanted to have, like the things that I wanted to create, I decided it. I had to sit down and like, okay, what is it that I want to see?

[00:16:16] How do I want my life to look like? And I started drawing it. I started writing things. I started writing things. And it's not that I have a complete plan, like a very clear plan, but I had a schematic or something to follow. Because I always said, I can give you a GPS today, GPS receiver today. It's going to be useless to you. It's not.

[00:16:43] It becomes something that you can use once you put the address and automatically the GPS gives you the direction of the way to get there. Right? So if you have the GPS in your hand and you haven't put any kind of direction, guess what? You're going to drive aimlessly. You're going to get lost. You're going to stop at places where you're not supposed to be to stop. And you're going to make mistakes on the way until you decide to put the direction. This is what I want to see.

[00:17:14] This is the person I want to become. This is the type of father that I want to become. This is the... So you look at every single aspect of your life and you decide what it is that you want to see. And once you have that image in your mind or something written down or something like that, now you go back. You say, okay, let me work. Okay, how do I get... I'm here. How do I get there? And then you start figuring out the direction.

[00:17:44] And you try different things. Okay, I can try this. If it doesn't work out, I'll try that. If it doesn't work, I'll try this. But as you're working towards that, towards your direction, towards your goal, your identity started to change. Because you're getting more new information that you never had. Because in order to change, you have to get something new. Right? New information causes you to change. And as you're working towards, that's how your identity started changing. And that's what I'll say, always talk about my own experience. That's what happened to me.

[00:18:14] I decided what I wanted to do. I decided what the things that I wanted to create and the things that I wanted to see. And came up with different action plan and follow through. Just follow. Some didn't work out and some did. And that's what got me to this point today, sitting with you and talking about this thing. Even the ones that didn't work out probably got you here. Yeah. Those are the lessons. Those are the lessons. If it worked, perfect. If it doesn't work out,

[00:18:44] you get the lesson and you keep moving forward. But you have to make the decision. If you don't decide on anything, you're going to stay stuck where you are. A couple of episodes ago, I was talking to a therapist and he was talking about the jack-in-the-box effect. So what that is, like I have my kids like for a week and it was going on and on and then they were gone for a week. So I would get back in the jack-in-the-box and close the lid

[00:19:13] and like hibernate for a week until they came back and then the jack-in-the-box comes out. How can men fight that? How can they stay, what, active or be centered or try not to get into that jack-in-the-box mode when the kids are gone? I'll still say it's deciding on a vision. Right? Because the jack-in-the-box effect only happens when you don't have nothing else to do. Your life is only attached to, basically your life is always attached to what you'll pass.

[00:19:43] Right? It's okay, I'll be this person because that's the person that I used to be. When the kids come back, that person comes out. Right? But when the kids are not there, I'll just put it back in the box and wait for them to come out again. That shows me that you don't have any sense of direction. You haven't decided yet where you wanted to go. So as soon, I think it's, yeah, you have the kids, of course, but after that, what's your life after that? Who do you want to be? So work on your life after that.

[00:20:14] Work on your life outside of that. And you see, your relationship with them will be enriched just because you try different things. And the person that's going to show up every week, they will see that. Oh yeah, you were different. You're different than last week or you're different than a month ago. You know what? You're happier or you know what? It's easier to talk to you. Yes, because you try different things and you become happier in your own skin. So once you reconnect to that, you reconnect to who you truly are and decide on

[00:20:43] how you want to do, it's easier now to get into that and then kill that jack-in-the-box effect. How can men keep a healthy co-parent relationship even when it's antiquity? It's just, yeah, how can men overcome that? And because you talked about being the best father you can be, which I love. That was my thing, being the best father I could be when I had him. How can that keep, how do they control that? Because sometimes you want to lash out

[00:21:12] things like that as you win the co-parenting. I tell people we co-parent us separately, basically. That's what we did, but we got through it. This, some people have a good co-parenting relationship. Yeah. Like they can go to, because I know a friend of mine, he can go to his ex-wife Howell just because he has the kids and you can go see the kids whenever he wants to. Wow. Yeah. Like it's, I was like, man, you got to teach me what you did because

[00:21:44] or maybe not. No, maybe not. Yeah, is it because I don't know what you did, but it's good, right? Yeah. It was still constant. Everybody else would do in their lives, but he can easily go to his ex-wife house, get the kids, see the kids whenever there was a problem. She calls him and he goes. Going back to that, this is like, okay, so co-parents, so forth. But for other people who don't have that kind of relationship

[00:22:14] and it's a bit challenging, you have first to understand that you cannot control the other person. Word. You can't. When you were married, it never worked out. You could never control her. When you divorce, it's not going to be easier. Right? The only person that you can control is you. So you start

[00:22:43] by controlling your emotions, controlling your thoughts, and controlling your behavior. Once you have that and then that part, and we talked about that part of forgiveness, work on it all the time. So, for my part, when things like that happened and I saw that co-parenting would be challenging, I just decided to focus on me. How do I

[00:23:13] want to react? In every other situation, how do I want to show up? Do I want to show up as this raging person or being always controlled by anger? No. And don't get me wrong, it wasn't easy. It took time to even get to a point where I can talk about it very casually this way. He used to create very strong emotions. But at the end,

[00:23:43] you have to understand to ask yourself, who do you want to control you? Do you want the other person or your ex to still control you? Or do you want you to control yourself and your behavior and everything? So once you understand that, once you put yourself into that position and also create a system of communication. Because for some people, talking to the ex works.

[00:24:13] For some people, not talking is the best way. So basically, we have, okay, we can communicate through emails, we can communicate through this, right? But we have certain plan in place, right? System in place that allows us, that can allow us to parent and work through the situation easier, easily than if we were just face-to-face and trying to make, figure things out that way. So figuring out, you can first control, where do you want the control to be?

[00:24:43] Do you want the control to be on the other hand or do you want the control to be on your hand? That's the first thing. Second, forgiveness. Because forgiveness allows you to get that control back towards yourself, right? And then after that, what kind of system do you want to put in place so that communication between the two of you goes seamlessly? Work. So I think those are, for me, those three things, once you put them into place, is a starting point. And then the rest

[00:25:13] is just about tweaking things. All right? But work on controlling you. Work on getting back that control. Work on understanding that, you know what, I have to be the one controlling my own emotion, my own thoughts, and my own reaction. Once you do that, things, I'm not going to say becomes easy, but become easier to handle. In certain situations, in certain things that your ex is going to do, you might be able to roll it off

[00:25:42] your shoulder. You know what? I can't control what she said. I can't control what she does. I can't control her emotion. I don't know what she has done because we don't live together anymore. I don't know where that anger is coming from, but I'm not going to be here, sitting here, being the punching ball and then going to take the tap. No. You know what? What you live is what you live. What I live is what I live. So once you react this way, okay, fine. I'll just go on my corner, work on my emotion,

[00:26:12] work on my things, control myself, and decide what kind of person I want to show up. How do I want to show up? Once you decide on that, you understand that control is back into your hands. Let's talk about the basic atom. I'm going to go deep on you here. It's the atom of divorce, self-care. A lot of men have, they neglect themselves. And my deal is you can't take care of other people if you don't

[00:26:42] take care of yourself. Kind of like when the plane is going down, you put your mask on first and then you put your kids on. You're no good to your kids if you're passed out. So speak to that for me. Self-care is a big thing. It's also, self-care, people think, oh yeah, self-care is me doing this. No. To me, it's also an act. You're showing yourself that, you know what, I still love me.

[00:27:12] I'm able to put myself first from time to time. So once you do those things, and for a lot of men, I think, I'm going to talk about my own experience a little bit. Because once I divorced, I had a lot of anger. anger, and I have a lot of anger, I have shame, a lot of shame. Because I was like, you know what, I fail. I'm the failure.

[00:27:42] So, anger, shame, all those things, they are energies. But energies that you want to store into your body. Once you store those type of energy into your body, what does your body do? Your body reacts to it and start showing people what you're really thinking about yourself. So, without any type of self-care, I can see a man walking around just by the way you walk.

[00:28:12] People can tell, you know what, this person doesn't think too much of himself. This person feels like a failure. This person has something going on in his mind. Because you let those energies fester into yourself. How did I do it? Personally, how did I do it? What did I do to get it out? First of all, the gym. Man, I tell you, I started going to the gym. I made

[00:28:42] the decision with myself that I want to develop a workout routine and I'll be at the gym four times a week. And for seven years, I've done that. Except for a year and a half where I had to go back for my master's. Right after that, I went back. And I never stopped. And then also, this thing about, remember we talked about

[00:29:12] creating the identity, self-esteem, and all that stuff. Men, we have a solid connection with our physique. Because we're physical. people. Right? So when you go to the gym, you jump rope, and today you do five, tomorrow you do ten, the next day you do fifteen, you're like, you know what, I'm getting stronger. That's a little boost of energy. And that's also self-care. For me, the biggest self-care was the

[00:29:41] gym. My physical health became my priority. I put a lot of energy into it. And that helped me deal with anger. That helped me deal with all that extra energy that I had. Because once I completely depleted my body, I didn't have the time or energy to even think about what this happened or that happened. I was mad about this. No. I was just tired. I want to have a good night. That's it. And the more you disconnect from the things

[00:30:11] that create those strong emotions into your body, create those strong emotions into your mind, into yourself, the less effect they'll create. It's the more distance you create. So the fact that you go into the gym, like you're depleting yourself and then you don't even have time to even think about it, then it's easier now to deal with them. So for me, physical activity played a big role. And I also got into judo, I got into

[00:30:41] jujitsu, because those things, like physical contact sport, what they do is you're fighting some body. People think it's all a fight, no, it's also mental. Okay, I'm going, this is my opponent, we're fighting, we are in the just and stuff like that, and we judo, boom, I get put on the floor. But the way I'm looking at it is, you know what, man, I could do better next time.

[00:31:11] And then you stand up again. Let's go. Boom, stand up again, let's go. So what does that teach you? Anger has no place in that. It teaches you how to control your anger. So now you're not directed by anger, but it's more your mind, thinking, what kind of strategy can I put in? Because I want to win this. How can I approach this person? What can I push my other opponent? And those are part of self-care too.

[00:31:41] Because I'm creating this distance within the situation, and also I'm learning how to control my anger through physical education to interaction with somebody else. Right? So I don't know if that answered your question. Oh, no, it does. It does. My men have about a 30-minute attention span. Kind of like me. Tell the people out there where to find you on the internet, and I'm going to have your contact stuff on the show notes. You can find me on,

[00:32:11] I have my website, www.eves, E-E-R, it's for Eves, Y-V-E-S-T-M-U-K-A-N-Y-A dot com. I'm also on, you can find me on LinkedIn as well. My first and last name, Y-V-E-S-M-U-K-A-N-Y-A. And I'm also on social media like Instagram. I'm your neighborhood therapist, and where I drop some videos about the things that I say, and a few things that I do there. And I also have my podcast that you can find on everywhere

[00:32:41] that you get your podcast from. His new baby. Yes, that's definitely my new baby. I have a lot of fun doing this. I have a lot of fun doing this. All right, sir, hold on the phone here. We're going to sign out, but stay on there. I appreciate your time. Thank you very much. No problem.