The gym is psychotherapy for the flesh, and good lifting is better healing than ‘being vulnerable’ with an average therapist.

I’m a sensitive man who feels deeply, and I believe in the power of words and stories, but I nonetheless fall within the majority of men who feel uninspired by the idea of talking through my feelings with a stranger called therapist.

If you forced me to choose between a barbell or BetterHelp, there’s no hesitation about which one I’m choosing for the rest of my life.

Like most men, I don’t think I’m in the wrong in my preference for action over sentiment - lifting through my emotions feels intuitively better than talking through my emotions.

That shouldn’t be a controversial idea - you’ve heard that the body keeps the score - so why are we stuck on this mistaken conviction that talking about feelings is the ultimate solution as if conversations could settle the score with body-based suffering?

The gym isn’t an escape from therapy.

The gym is our most reliable, most accessible, and most socially acceptable Trojan horse for somatic therapy for millions of men in the modern world.

The body bears the burden, and I consider the gym to be a sacred space which serves as both the gateway and the guardian of everyday embodiment, and I wish that more people understood the importance of balancing their tongue with their training.

Jordan