JCIP #344 - Chris Hemmings

In episode 344 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Chris Hemmings. 

Chris is a published author and mental health advocate.

Chris is the Founder of two organisations in the men’s mental health space: M-Path and Men’s Therapy Hub. 

Chris set up M-Path first in 2019, which is an organisation designed to actively and compassionately engage men and boys in their own experience of existence and encourage them to take charge of their well-being. 

After several years, Chris stepped away from the day-to-day running of M-Path to set up Men’s Therapy Hub in 2025, which connects men with male therapists in the UK who are passionate about working with male clients, ensuring those men receive tailored support from professionals who understand the unique challenges men face.

M-Path are an organisation we came across through an article by a young man called Josh Sargent in The Guardian called ‘I’m a teenager who was lured into the manosphere. Here’s how to reach young men like me’. Josh referenced M-Path amongst several other organisations who are doing great work in the men’s space. 

M-Path provides men’s mental health, emotional wellbeing & masculinity programmes designed to drive inclusion and allyship within organisations of all sizes.

In this episode we discuss the work M-Path and MTH do in the men’s space, Chris’s journey to entering this space and the impact those organisations have had in the years since their inception. 

For Chris’s mental health journey, we focus on several parts of his life which provided severe mental health difficulties. 

The first was when his father died when Chris was in his early 20s. After a 3-4 month period, he came close to addiction, and he left his job as a BBC journalist and embarked on a recovery journey. 

It was around this time that he also discovered the statistics around male suicide in the UK.

We then talk about another period of grief when one of his best friends died from cancer in 2019, and how he navigated that alongside his mental health.

We discuss all of this, his recovery, and how he turned these experiences into a vehicle for change with Men’s Therapy Hub and becoming a qualified BACP therapist in 2022.

As always, #itsokaytovent

You can find out more about Men's Therapy Hub here: https://menstherapyhub.co.uk/.

You can find out more about M-Path here: https://m-path.co.uk/.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Hi Venters, welcome back to another episode of the Just Checking In Podcast. I'm your host, Freddie Cocker, and this podcast is brought to you by Vent, a place where everyone, but especially men and boys, can open up about their mental health issues, break down stigmas, and start conversations. In each episode, I check in with a special guest. We have an atta and a chat about all things mental health, as well as anything and everything else they are passionate about. If it helps that person with their mental health, we discuss it. My special guest for this episode is Chris Hemmings. Chris is a published author, mental health advocate, and charity founder. Chris is the founder of two brilliant organizations in the men's mental health space, MPATH and Men's Therapy Hub. Chris set up Empath first in 2014, which is an organization designed to actively and compassionately engage men and boys in their own experience of existence and encourage them to take charge of their own well-being. After several years, Chris stepped away from the day-to-day running of MPAT to set up Men's Therapy Hub in 2019, which connects men with male therapists in the UK who are passionate about working with male clients, ensuring those men receive tailored support from professionals who understand the unique challenges men face. In 2017, he wrote a book about macho culture in air quotes called Be a Man, which, reflecting eight years on, he now directs people to a book by George Bell called Be a Man About It, which has just been published at time of recording, and will discuss the reasons why he recommends it in this podcast. Empath are an organization I came across through an article by a young man called Josh Sargent in The Guardian. It was called I'm a Teenager Who Was Lured Into the Manosphere, here's how to reach young men like me. And he referenced MPATH amongst several other organizations who are doing great work in the men's space. In this episode, we discussed the work Empath and MTH do in the men's space, Chris's journey to entering it, and the impact those two organizations have had in the years since their inception. For Chris's mental health journey, we focused on several parts of his life which provided severe mental health difficulties for him. The first was when his father died, when Chris was in his early twenties. This death caused him to spiral into depression. It suppressed his emotions and he turned to alcohol and cocaine for unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with the grief. After a three to four month period, he came close to addiction, and he left his job as a BBC journalist at the time and embarked on a recovery journey. It was around this time that he also discovered the statistics around male suicide in the UK. We then talk about another period of grief when one of his best friends died from cancer in 2019 and how he navigated that alongside his mental health. We discuss all of this, his recovery, and how he turned these experiences into a vehicle for change with Men's Therapy Hub and becoming a qualified BACP therapist in 2022. So this is how my conversation with Chris Hemmings went. Chris, welcome to the Just Checking In Pod. Thank you so much for letting me check in with you. I know it was a bit of a whirlwind for us to line up for chord dates. You were ill, I was ill. I've just come back from up north, been a lovely trip up north with my dad, and I thought, ah, I can get a podcast in on my day off. When I came across the amazing work you're doing with Empath and Men's Therapy Hub through Josh Sargent's lovely article in The Guardian, I immediately emailed you and we had a really fantastic chat off air. So I'm really excited for this one. How are you, mate?

SPEAKER_02 3:53

I'm all right, thank you. Yeah, just about recovered, although not fully recovered yet from that bout of either COVID or flu, whatever it was, but I'm doing all right now.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Yeah, oh I appreciate that, man. It's a bastard. I had it as well. Mine took at least three weeks to be fully no symptoms. So yeah, it was a tough one for me too. So I'm very pleased that you are all well. Without further ado, are you ready to start the show and crack on and talk all about your amazing journey? I am ready. Let's do it. We're going to start your podcast by talking about your professional journey and career, as there's so much to discuss, and you've done so much work in the men's mental health space. So on behalf of myself and everyone at Venn and the podcast, thank you for all the work that you've done and continue to do, mate. First of all, tell me back to the beginning, if you can. Tell me how you founded MPath in 2019, the work it does and the inspiration behind the name.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Yeah, it was a bit of a mission to get to launching MPATH, to be honest. And it started with the death of my father in 2014. So at that time, I'm a BBC journalist. I'm writing and reporting on general news. And in the build-up to my dad's death from cancer, we knew he was dying. In the build-up to it, he was in complete denial that it was happening. I was also, therefore, as his son, in complete denial that it was happening, despite the evidence of his deterioration. And in the immediate aftermath of his death, I took as much cocaine as I could to numb the pain. I was going out every single night. I was also doing some writing for a nightlife magazine in Manchester, so there was always someone I could hang out with under the guise of doing work. I was just getting fucked up constantly. And I think my mates forgave it at first because fair enough. But then after about three months, and within the space of about a week, two mates who actually don't know each other particularly well, Sean and Rob, have spoken about these guys a lot. They both came to me separately and were like, that's enough now. You're not doing okay, you have to stop. And I was just completely in denial. And the irony of denial is you don't know that you're in denial until you're not anymore. That's the frustrating thing about it. And I was just suppressing everything because I didn't want to deal with the reality of the fact that my dad wasn't around anymore, and just how heartbreaking and painful that was. And so in the end, I did stop. And within two days of stopping, I had a monumental emotional breakdown. I'll never forget it. It was a Saturday morning, Friday night. And we woke up on the Saturday morning. I was living with Rob at this time, and he was a big Lions fan, the rugby team, and the Lions were playing. It was Saturday morning. I wasn't so bothered about the Lions, but whatever. And I remember saying to him, like, listen, man, I've got some stuff I need to say, and I don't know what it is, but I know that I need to say it. And are you okay to just sit there while I say these things? And I was just pacing back and forth up and down the living room, drinking litres of tea and smoking cigarettes and telling him everything about how I felt. And from there, this whole new world opened up to me because I then started to think about just how difficult it had been for me to deal with this reality and the kind of mess that I'd ended up in. And yet I'm a privately educated middle-class white English guy who on paper didn't have anything to be sad about, didn't have anything problematic in his life. Of course, my dad had died, but as a journalist, I thought, well, hang on, if somebody with all of the privileges that I grew up with could have ended up in that disastrous place that I did, what's it like for those that don't have the safety net that I have? And so as a journalist, I first told my own story and started to think about how I'd ended up in the place that I'd ended up, all of my socialization. And then I also started to ask, well, maybe it's not just me, maybe there's a bigger story here. And it was nearly 12 years ago now that I found out for the first time that well, the way that it was always framed was that suicide is the biggest killer of men under the age of 45. Well, I like to frame it as the most likely way that I will die today is by choosing not to live. Because that scared the shit out of me. And that was the language that I used to take into schools. It's this the most likely way that you'll die, lads, is by choosing not to live. And that was my reality. And it still is because I'm 39, I'm not even in my 40s yet, so it still is that reality. And that's really scary. So I started to write about it, and I wrote for The Independent, and I wrote my first ever article was about why my male tears make so many people uncomfortable because well, you know, obviously, once they'd started, they never fucking stopped. And my ex walked in on me, and I was watching the film Marley and Me, where the Labrador dies, spoiler. And I had a Labrador as a kid, and I couldn't handle it. Obviously, you know, I'm six foot three, 115 kilos, a big guy. She walked in and she didn't know what to do with me. She'd obviously never come across a guy crying like that. So I wrote about that for the independent, and it kind of snowballed from there. And then I started writing about it more, making documentaries for the BBC. I wrote a book about it in 2016, came out in 2017. And then once the book came out, and I was on TV and radio because I was pulling this like uh reformed lad line, which was, you know, I was a rugby lad who would seen the error of his ways and lots of media attention. And then some schools got in touch and said, Hey, do you do talks? And because I'm a man, I said yes. And then some businesses got in touch and said, Hey, do you do business talks? And because I'm a man, I said yes. And then this school I'd already been in once. They got me back in to speak to a different year group, and then they said, Oh, we've had somebody cancel who does workshops. Do you do workshops? And because I'm a man, I said yes. And then I went into the school and did a day of workshops, and I just created this empathy workshop just off the top of my head in the space of about three weeks, which is still being taught almost to the latter today by the facilitators that go in, which makes me really proud. Because what I'd realized was is that I'd cut myself off from my empathy. The socialization as a man, it's not that I didn't have the empathy, it's that I'd learned not to express it. So then empath was born over about a year or so later, and I and I started to make a career out of it alongside my journalism. And yeah, I mean, empath is still going now. I think we have six facilitators. Will Adolphy, who you should have on the podcast, he runs it and he's doing a better job of it than I ever could. And it's just brilliant, and it's so beautiful to see something that I created grow and is still creating change in schools, and I'm so proud of it. And it's all because I had this moment of realization of it's not just me. There are so many men out there who are struggling and no one's talking about it. And why is nobody talking about it? Well, now they are. Not just because of me, I should add. I was at the very start of the zeitgeist shift, and I'm very proud of it.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yeah, we both were. Like you said, you've stepped away from Empath quite a few years ago now. But before we talk about Men's Therapy Hub, something quite interesting you said off air to me was yes, you've wrote that book, but at the time of recording, another great book with a similar title has come out called Be a Man About It, which is by uh a great man called George Bell. In fact, I think last week it actually was published and available for the listeners to read. Why, when we spoke off air, did you point towards his book rather than yours?

SPEAKER_02 11:23

Well, yeah, so for listeners who don't know, my book was called Be a Man, and that's why the interesting thing for me is I spoke to George for our podcast for Men's Therapy, which is called No Man's An Island. I spoke to George and he explained what his book was about. And what it sounds to me like, George's book is the 10-year update of mine. Mine's quite a bit out of date now because we are talking about a lot of these things. My opinions have changed a lot since I wrote that book. Um, I'm disappointed with myself, although I was still young, but I was 29 when I wrote it. Disappointed about how unforgiving I was towards men. I wouldn't, obviously, as a trained therapist, I'm not so unforgiving now. But also, I mean, my book isn't for sale anymore, it's sold out and they didn't reprint it. So, you know, first time authorship is not lucrative, but genuinely, like I stand by what I said at the age that I said it, but I wouldn't write the same book now. And I really like what George has to say. So go and buy George's book. It's not a competition, like we're all pulling in the same direction. We might be pulling from slightly different directions, but we're all pulling in the same direction. So I fully support George and the work that he's doing. But I loved writing that book and it changed my life because it put me on the map. I'll never be sad that I wrote it and I'm glad that I did, and I stand by that I wrote it when I did, but I don't stand by everything that I said in it now.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

It's really interesting that you say that because you know we came into the space at relatively similar times. I came in at September 2017, you came in a year earlier to me. But as we discussed off air, you know, I started Vent when I was 23 years old, a bit of a child still, really. And I've made mistakes running Vent and the podcast. My views have evolved on lots of things, and what I thought back then is not what I'd think now, and vice versa. And that's part of life, that's part of growing up, that's part of achieving more nuance on things, etc. The list goes on. How do you reflect on your time at the time you wrote the book? Like, did it come too early for you, for example? Like, how have you evolved as well in the years that have gone on since?

SPEAKER_02 13:14

That's a great question. When I was writing it, an elder in the space said to me, You're quite young to be writing this, you're quite young to be doing this work. And I said, Yeah, I am, but here I am. Because at the time, as you well know, there weren't many of us around. There was a guy who now is a reform UK candidate. He described himself to me as the de facto voice for men in this country. I thought of the Sir Alex Ferguson line of knocking you off your fucking perch. And I did for a time, to be fair. I was the go-to in the media because I was also in the media, so it was easier for me to schmooze my way into it. And there weren't many voices who were speaking the kind of towing the line between being feminist in their approach whilst also not being hating on men in their approach. And yeah, I found that to be really rewarding, but also really challenging because I don't think I had fully formulated my opinions at that point. What's more, and I know we spoke beforehand about I don't want to speak in detail about this, but in 2021, something from my past came back to haunt me, or someone. One was a fair cop that was blown up on Twitter, but then on the back of that, somebody made a false allegation of sexual abuse against me, which was quickly retracted, but the damage was done. And this is where I didn't have the benefit of time away from my youth to create distance between the mistakes that I've made because I have made a lot, Freddie. I have hurt people in my life, I've hurt people along the way, but you know, the person I've hurt the most is myself. But that's kind of probably the biggest regret that I had was that because I was still so young, I was still so close to that person that I was in my like mid to late twenties, where I was still figuring out how to be a decent person. And that was a big challenge. And look, if you want to hear more about that, there's three episodes of me on the Mankind Project podcast. Go and listen to the second one. I talk all about it there. But it was harrowing. But you know what? Best thing that ever happened to me because I had to go to the depths of my soul and figure out who I was because I was suicidal and I was a mess. And that matured me a huge amount. And it was happening just as I was about to start therapy training. In fact, I'd just done my, I was in the middle of my foundation course when all that was going on. So that was just madness, right? So yeah, I look back on that time with fondness and also think like I was very green. And probably the only regret that I have from around that time is that I didn't reach out to more of the elders in the community. There weren't many of us, that's the thing. No, there's lots of us now. No, I know, and I and I'm considered one now, which is weird. So am I, which is also weird with my bleach blonde hair and my earrings, which Mark Brooks said he reckons that'll be the last time I ever bleached my hair in my life. And I laughed and I said, You're probably right. And didn't reach out to those guys and say, I need some guidance here. Because there was one, and it's a really frustrating experience I had was that a guy reached out to me, I'm not going to name him, but a guy reached out to me and he was like, Don't let the bastards get you down, like keep going. We need you in this space. Like the work that you do speaks for itself. So okay, thank you. Six months or so later, when I'd kind of recovered and was back on my feet, I messaged him and I was like, You specialized in bystander intervention work. And I was like, okay, that was part of the AMPATH work that was my weakest point because we do bystander-ish, like uh allyship work. So I said, Can I come and learn from you? And he was like, No, I don't collaborate. And I'm like, ah man, like, never meet your heroes, right? And I'm like, what do you mean you don't collaborate? Like, bystander intervention work was invented by black women in the US. Like, what do you mean you don't collaborate? Everything you're doing is not it's not original thought. And it made me so despondent because I thought you're being so male there. Like I'm gonna come in and steal your work and steal the money off you. Do you know what? At the end of every empath talk, I say to people, if you want these slides, I will send them to you. And I don't care if you take them and create your own business out of them. They are open source. Take them, run with them. Because they're not all my ideas, bits of it are my ideas, but most of it is stuff that I've taken from other people, people that I respect. So that's been a frustration. Like that's been such a frustration. Get it out, mate. Get it out. It's a it's a safe space. Yeah, yeah, thanks, thanks. Well, I'll call you on that. Technically, and my wife will tell you she's a clinical sexologist. There's no such thing as a safe space, there is only safer spaces and spaces that we try to make safer. So yeah, I like that. But what we're trying to do is create more and more spaces for men. And what I really like about the men's movement now is that there doesn't seem to be this us against them mentality. You know, I go on your podcast, I'm I'm certain I'll get you on mine at some point. We will lift each other up. You're not obligated to, mate. I'll say that now. I'm aware. I'm aware, and we will promote each other and we will say yes and yes and yes and like the more and more of the better. And so that was it. So I was young and I was fresh, also at a time when there wasn't enough of us to have a decent community, and that is possibly where I fell down.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

I completely share what you say, mate. In the early days, I used to get also frustrated because I would, you know, promote some organizations that I'd like and I wouldn't expect anything back, and then they would ask me to collaborate with them or they would ask me to share things, and I'd be like, Well, I'm doing all this work for you, mate, but you don't seem to give a shit about mine. So yeah, I completely get where you're coming from, and I don't think we're in that space anymore, thankfully. Let's talk about your second baby, Men's Therapy Hub. And you mentioned earlier that you are now a qualified BACP therapist or British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy. You qualified in 2022. So just tell me about this organization, the work it does, and what you wanted to achieve with it.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

Yeah, so I'm started my training in 2020, my foundation course. I started practicing as a therapist in 2022 and I fully qualified in 23. And on the course of my training, so I did a foundation course where I was one of three guys in a class of 18. And then I go on to my master's, and I'm one of three guys who graduate out of a cohort of 23 or four. And in fact, on my master's course, there were more women of colour who graduated than men, which is awesome for women of colour, by the way, because there's not enough of them in the profession. But demographically, that's quite mad. And so, again, as a privately educated middle class white English guy, I'm also queer, by the way. I have at least one intersection, but I don't wear that as a badge. Like, as a privately educated middle class guy, for the first time in my life, I'm a minority. And it feels very weird to me to be a minority. And what becomes increasingly obvious to me is two things. First of all, traditional therapeutic approaches didn't feel like they would be appropriate for a lot of men. As a journalist, researching and writing about masculinity for nearly eight, nine years by that point, I'm obviously looking through that lens very often. And so I'm putting my hand up and I'm saying, well, this doesn't feel right for men. And I see the tuts and the eye rolls and the why are we talking about men? And I'm trying to explain, like, I'm a minority in this room, and I don't feel like I'm being represented in this work. And there was difficulty. And then I had this experience where we were doing conversations around differences in therapy, and we are rightly talking about different race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, gender, class, class, gender when it comes to trans people and non-binaryism, and all of these wonderful things that we need to learn about in order to reduce our biases, and yet nothing about men. So again, I put my hand up and I say we're talking about differences in the therapy room, and we're not talking about what it's like to be male. 50% of the population. 50% of the population, only 20% of therapists and declining, fewer than a third of clients, and nearly 50%, 44% of men as the research drop out of therapy early because they don't feel seen and understood by their therapist, right? So I'm having this conversation and I'm saying, all right, I want to put a question to the room. Boris Johnson was prime minister at the time. I said, if Boris Johnson came to therapy, regardless of his background, his history, and what he stands for, does he or does he not deserve just as much empathy? And in therapy, there's a thing called unconditional positive regard, which is where Freddie, if you walked into a therapy room and you were just like being openly racist, I'm not going to judge you for being racist. To find out why, because no one's born racist, right? So unconditional positive regard, which is a beautiful thing. Doesn't Boris Johnson deserve that? Now I've emigrated to Denmark because my wife is Danish, and Brexit has made that a thousand times harder. He really affected me in that way. Brexit just messed me up so much. And yet, if he was to be my therapy client, it would be my duty to meet him with empathy and compassion. Because politics don't come into someone's mental health. Right. Well, so I thought at least. So then we had this conversation, and people got really angry about me for even suggesting it. And the next week I was called in for a conversation with the lecturer, and she said that it had been decided that there needed to be a conversation with me about white privilege.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

That's a struggle session, basically.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

That sounds like to which I said I would love to have a conversation about that with you. But I wasn't talking about being white, I was talking about being male. And what you're saying is just because somebody is privileged, that means that they are less worthy of our empathy and compassion. And I think that is the massive problem with this profession, and is also possibly a reason why there are so few people like me in the room. And I never heard from them again on it. Surprise, surprise. But you know, people have blind spots, and I have many blind spots that have been pointed out over the years. And so, anyway, long story short, I finished training as a therapist and I read an article by a guy called Dr. Jet Stone, who's a US clinical psychologist who specializes in working with men and boys. And the article is basically we need to stop trying to change men to fit into therapy and start trying to change therapy to fit men. And I have this like wave of giddy excitement, relief, like finally somebody saying what I like deeply believed, but I was not allowed to believe on my course. Like on my course, I was told absolutely no self-disclosure as a therapist whatsoever. And then I go out and I read, and a lot of men actually are saying, well, no, a lot of men don't feel comfortable. So like now I will tell my clients little things about me only when it's relevant. Right? So a client who's struggling with internalized homophobia, I will tell them I didn't come out as bisexual until I was 27 because of my internalized homophobia. So I get it. Like little things like that. Anyways, I messaged Jet because this is what I do when I find someone I'm interested in. I'm like, let's have a chat, let's have a call. Like you did with me. And one of the best conversations I've ever had. Jet is now the co-host of No Man's An Island and is the US director of men's therapy. We're going to be launching in the US in the new year. It's already the new year. We're going to be launching in the US this year. And we had a conversation, and I said I want to work with you one day. And then November 24, the universe just gave me a bolt from somewhere and said there needs to be a directory of male therapists for men. And I was like, fuck. Okay. Well, now I have to do it, right? Like, damn, that's a good idea. Fuck you, brain. And so I set about doing it. And we launched in November, and we have, as of today, 165 therapists signed up. And as of today, I think we've already had between 30 and 40 referrals through Men's Therapy Hub. We have the podcast, which has within three months, has like nearly 1,500 downloads. Like people are interested in it. Like I'm very, very happy with how it's going. And I'm surprised by how it's going. Why are you surprised, mate? Well, there's a therapy platform that's a quote rival, but I don't see them that way. But Men's Counseling Service and they're mixed gender therapists for men. And they're charging 24 quid a month. We're charging five. And we're giving 10% away to four men's mental health charities. And this is not about making money for me. And I'm not very good at running a business, as you can tell from those financials, right? I make enough money as a therapist and I just have no understanding of whether it would work. But what I've heard is a lot of the therapists bought into it because the concept was so sound, and that has come from 12 years of my work and understanding. And then the second reason people have stayed is because they like me, apparently, and I'm a semi-figurehead for it. And I've had guys saying, like, I was going to leave, but then like I listened to you on the podcast, and I thought, this guy's not ego-driven. And I'm like, no, this is not about ego for me. This is a passion project. I don't care if men's therapy hub fails and men's therapy club starts up and does really well, right? I like men's counseling service, but every directory has 80% female therapists on, so that kind of already exists. We'll see, right? But I know, because one guy has told me, he said, If I found a therapist through Men's Therapy Hub and it's already changed my life. So as far as I'm concerned, it's been a success. Anything else from there is a bonus. So I'm really, really happy with how it's going. I'm very tired. I'm also, because I used to be a TV and radio producer, I'm also editing, producing, recording the podcast and doing all of the website stuff. And yeah, it'll be worth it in the end.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

That's amazing work that you're doing, mate. And I was very pleased to discover in our chat off air that Friend of the Pod, Anthony Bedwood, is also one of your male therapists signed up who's founder of A to B Therapy. I just want to ask you about the quote because when you told me off air, and it's obviously Jet's quote, I've used it in quite a few episodes, and obviously attribute it to you. I should attribute it to Jeff going forward. And I just found it such a great analogy and quote for how we need to change our perception of traditional therapy, right? And how men view it. And I've been doing that through the podcast, whether it comes to interviewing loads of men from walk and talk organizations, I'm interviewing men who do walk and talk therapy now, and just trying to find the one size fits one, not one size fits all approach, right? I like that. So, how has your own perception of therapy itself changed as you've interviewed these men or you've discovered these alternative methods that have actually helped a lot of men that isn't just traditional sit-down one-to-one?

SPEAKER_02 28:04

Well, actually, before I get to that, I need to start with my own therapy journey, which was my first therapist was a trainee because I was training. Journalism is not lucrative either. And I was paying 20 quid a week. And if anybody is worried that they can't afford therapy, type in low-cost therapy. There are thousands of trainee therapists out there desperate to work with you, and they'll be just as good as the guys who've been working for years. Like you'll find a good therapist. And I found this guy, and after about four or five weeks, I said to him, I said, I'm running rings around you, man. I was like, I need you to be more direct with me. I need you to call me on my bullshit because I'm just spinning you around and this is too easy. So he comes back and he's had this conversation with the supervisor, and then he comes back next week and he's right, right. He's like, You are banned from talking about any work you think you've done on yourself. You're banned from talking about your book, you're banned from talking about all of these documentaries you've made and these people that you've spoken to because that's a smoke screen. You don't know shit about your mental health, and we're gonna figure out how here together. And I was just Oh, he stepped up, right? And I just went, Oh all right, now we can start. Thank you. Now I had to prompt him, like he's a trainee, right? So, like, fair enough. He was my therapist for like 18 months, like brilliant guy. Big up Colin. And that was obvious to me. And what I hear from my own clients, first of all, so many of them come and they say, I've had therapy before, it didn't really work for me, and all it felt like was this woman, and usually a woman, putting an arm round his shoulder, which was really nice for a time. And then what? Which is where I'll say, Well, I'll give you the empathy, I'll give you the compassion, hopefully, but I'll also encourage you, I'll challenge you, hold you account, I'll call you on your bullshit where I see it and hold you to account and also set your challenges. Like do the implementation side of it, which is why I'm therapist and coach. And it's like the therapy side of it is great where we look back, and the coaching side of it is great where we look forward. But without both of them together, if we're putting paths forward, we don't know if they're repeating old patterns from our past. And then I've had great conversations with people like Stephen Hall and like I've spoken to wonderful guys who are changing the game, and like Zack Seidler from Movember, like the work he's doing with his Men in Mind program, and all these guys. And actually, it's hard for me not to sound big-headed when I say this. The vast majority of it, actually, has only been confirming what I had already believed, which is that men need to be treated like men in the space. And I think about how I have been spoken to my whole life as a man by other men, and it's really direct. It's calling me out. I think about the best sports coaches I ever had. They would take me to one side and go, like, Hemings, are you okay? Like, what's going on? Do you need like half the time? And the other half of the time, they'd be saying, get up off the floor, you lazy shit, and run after the fucking ball. Oh, yeah, okay. I need both, and obviously I don't speak to my clients like that, and that's where Zach Seidler says, Well, I fucking do. And like, I don't do that, right? Not necessarily. But what it is, and my supervisor coined the term, is the compassionate dad. The compassionate dad.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Tommy Norris in Land Man, best example of that.

SPEAKER_02 31:18

Okay, I haven't seen that yet.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Watch it. Best father figure since Uncle Phil. That's what I put on.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

What is it about him, about that character? And I don't mind spoilers. So, what is it about him that they're so compassionate dad?

SPEAKER_01 31:27

He's got two kids, he cares for them, he nurtures them, he calls them on their bullshit, he protects them when things go wrong for them, but he also tells them why they made a mistake.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

And he's very direct, and he he puts action into words as much as he does words. Do you see what I mean? So there'll be times when his son fucks up and he'll call him out on it and he goes, You're being fucking stupid. Why have you done this? Blah, blah, blah. And then sometimes when he's done something, I won't give spoilers, he'll go out to bat for him in a way that he'll probably won't realise. He'll be the good dad, he'll make the calls, he'll influence people to get the right outcome for his children. And he'll do the same thing with his wife. He'll well his ex-wife, but yeah, it's spoilers. He'll do the same thing with her as well. And he'll care for all the people in his life around him who aren't just his kids as well. He's that like strong figure, and he can give the carrot and he can also give the stick. Do you know what I mean? Yes. Metaphorically.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Yes, and that's the beauty of it. And that's where I see the role as a therapist. And I and and it's interesting because I'll be doing this with 60-year-old clients as well as 16-year-old clients, which is to say, let's say that they're coming with like deep relational challenges, is to meet them with that is very difficult, and what you're experiencing is tough. And like, let's talk about the nuances of the difficulties that you are facing, and also I feel like the way that you approach this situation, or can you see how the way you approach this situation actually could have been influencing it in a way that you didn't want? Or if I was to put myself in your partner's shoes, they actually might have experienced this as this, and that's the holding them to account bit. It's not just the there, there, pat on the head, you're the victim. Or you're always right as well. Well, neither. Yeah. It's always the yes, and it's like, yeah, there's a part of this where you might be being victimized. There's also a part of this where you're creating this conflict for yourself, and it's not to blame you for it, because let's figure out why maybe you are self-destructing, right? There's a reason why you're self-destructing, which is where we can do some like deep psychological work, but it's to say, but that is happening as I see it. We weren't taught that. We weren't taught that. We were just taught to ask questions and reflect back and ask questions and reflect back. Well, do you know what? That sounds maddening to me. Because I need someone sometimes to tell me, like my supervisor sometimes he'll say something to me, and afterwards I'll have the moment and I'm like, fuck you, man. Like, damn it, that's so fucking obvious now that you say it. But we need someone to tell us, otherwise, we can't see it. It's why I say to my clients, that like I have a therapist, therapists have therapists. We can't do this for ourselves. And also, like, people are paying me a pretty penny to come to do a session. I'm supposed to be someone who knows what I'm talking about. So if I know something, if I know a psychological theory, or let's use the example I used earlier of the internalized homophobia. Some of my clients who had grappling with their sexuality have never heard of internalized homophobia. So that's where it's incumbent upon me to say, it sounds to me like you're experiencing internalized homophobia. Do you know what that is? No, okay, well, I'm gonna tell you what that is. Because otherwise, they're never gonna get there on their own. I don't believe. Or maybe they can, but it'll take weeks and weeks and weeks. Well, it doesn't damage them.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

And some of those are survivors of abuse, mate, and they don't know and have just been inside their heads for most of their life about it. Right.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

So gentle nudges, not Swift kicks up the ass, very rarely, actually. Sometimes Swift kicks up the arse, but mostly gentle nudges and pointing in a direction to say, have you considered this? You know, oh, I can only do this and this. Well, actually, there's also this third way that you haven't considered. Have you thought about that? You know? And men's therapy hub, to come back to it, is a load of men who want to work with more men. And that's brilliant because a lot of these men are specifically creating practices that are designed for men because men need it. Tailored services.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

Let's reflect on this journey, mate. First of all, what's been your proudest achievement on it so far?

SPEAKER_02 35:40

Oh man, my proudest achievement. Okay, helping a guy work through his attachment problems so that he asked his partner now fiance to marry him. That was pretty proud. But I went into work with a school with Empath, one of the last schools I ever did. And we do um an anonymous sharing exercise where the pupils will share on a piece of paper something that they're frightened of and that nobody in the room knows about, right? So a fear, a worry, a concern that they have that nobody in the room knows about. And then I take them in and I read them out at the end as examples of where we need to have more empathy for each other because we're more similar with each other than we think. And this was during the Andrew Tate explosion, and one of the lads, he wrote some Andrew Tate rhetoric rather than writing anything else. So I read it out, and I read it out, and I was like, I'm not gonna demand that we find out who this is because these were shared anonymously, but I would just like the person who wrote this, and it was an all-boys school, so it was a lad. I would like the person who wrote this to recognize that everybody else in the class was brave enough to write down a fear, and actually you weren't, and I'm not having a go at you for that, but you're doing this because you think that you're the brave, tough one when actually everybody around you has shown you just how brave they are. So perhaps there's something that you're hiding, right? Perhaps there's a big challenge that you don't want to acknowledge, and that's okay, you're not in trouble, just something to think about. And then we carried on, right? So I didn't want to call him out, didn't want to shame him in front of the his classmates. This was the first workshop. Empaths program is three workshops. So when I went back for the second and did a mental health workshop at the end of the second lesson of the day, a lad standing there stays behind. This happens sometimes. They like have a little breakdown or they'll tell me about something, and that's beautiful. And this lad's like trembling, and I'm like, whoa, okay. Like, hey, you okay? He's like, Yeah, he's like, Do you remember that piece of paper from last time? And I'm like, Yep, I remember. And he says, That was me. And I was like, Okay, and he said, You were right. I have been scared, I've been scared for a long time, and thank you to you, you made me see that, and ever since then, I've never felt more able to be myself in my whole life than I have been because I realized that the other people around me were also scared, it's just that they were more brave and able to say it. So maybe I wasn't as tough as I thought I was, and I'm stood there and I'm like shell shocked, just wow. I'm feeling the chills in my body right now from it, and I say to him, I think you might be the coolest 15-year-old I will ever meet in my whole life because what you have just done shows courage on a level that I don't think I have ever had. That shows me that you are gonna be alright. The fact that you can do that shows me you're gonna be alright, and also I said to him, and thank you, because it also proves to me that this work is working, so thank you. And I said to him, like, if I wouldn't get arrested for it, I'd give you a hug, but that would also weird you out, so you can just go to break time or whatever, right? And I'm just left in the room and I'm like, I'm close to tears because it's just so brilliant. And those moments, I've had similarish moments, but none as powerful as that. And it makes it all worthwhile. So you talk about pride, I don't care about being on woman's hour or like writing my book or like all of that stuff got me to be in front of that boy. And the work that we did in that room together changed his life. And I hope he's still doing okay now.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

That's incredible, mate. You don't create growth through demonization, do you, with the young boys? No. And unfortunately the mainstream hasn't yet learned that, but that's a separate podcast. As a final question, mate, before we move on, what has this wider professional journey from books to empath to men's therapy hub, everything in between, also taught you about yourself?

SPEAKER_02 40:00

Uh, that I don't know as much as I think I know, and that the emotional growth never stops. I thought at one point that I had it all figured out, and then I realized that I didn't. And then I thought many years later again, okay, now I have it all figured out, and then I realized that I didn't, which helps me with my clients because I can tell them with absolute confidence that as a parent, you don't have anything figured out, and that as your parents, they definitely didn't have anything figured out. Like none of us really know what we're doing. And to me, that is like deeply humbling. It's deeply humbling to think that there is always going to be something next that is gonna challenge, that is gonna upend my belief structure, and actually to step into life with the open eyes of I still am learning and I still don't know what I'm talking about is a much more beautiful place and a less rigid place than walking into it with, I know who I am, I know what I'm about, and I know everything because I don't. I am knowledgeable on this area. There are people who are more knowledgeable than me, there are people who are less, but it's not a contest. There are people who are more knowledgeable on certain areas, and I might be more knowledgeable on something else. And we all have stuff to learn from each other. It's why I love doing these, it's why I love doing our podcast, it's why I love just having conversations with so many men. Because I can learn from so many people, and that was a mentality that private school did not imbue me with. Private school imbued me with this sense of entitled arrogance, and it's still a work in progress to dismantle that.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

A quote I often say on this podcast is by a rapper called MF Doom, who's sadly no longer with us, which is the more you know, the more you know you don't know shit.

SPEAKER_02 41:51

Yeah, yeah. Well, the more I learn about the human mind, the less I realise I know. And it will be forever that way, and I love that.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

We've talked about your amazing career and professional journey, mate. Let's go deeper and talk about your own mental health journey. So I ask all my special guests on this topic this question first. Tell me back to early life, teenagers, and looking back, were there any early mental health experiences, if any? Who's the Chris we meet here?

SPEAKER_02 42:18

Yeah, mental health, I guess, wasn't really a topic of conversation in my early life and in my teens. It was only really in my late 20s that it started to be something that was discussed more openly. So, mental health problems, I guess it's difficult to recognise if you have any problems if you don't know that they exist. And I lived a pretty charmed life, to be honest. I grew up in a pretty stable family. You know, we were not massively financially privileged, actually, because my parents spent nearly every penny they had sending us to private school. And this is not a well is me tale, but my biggest privilege actually was my emotional privilege growing up of emotionally stable household, very stable mother and father relationship, two older brothers who, even though they would torture me just like any younger brother, they would go out to bat for me whenever and wherever. And I was the safest kid in the world, and so I grew up feeling really safe in the world, which is why I grew up to be so confident, it's a big part of it. So I was captain of the school football team from 11 to 14. Puberty wasn't so kind to me, so I put on a lot of weight very quickly. And because I went to a school that played rugby and both my older brothers had played first 15 rugby, I was basically pointed over to rugby field, like Hemings too fat for football. Second rugby. Yeah. No, I was actually a prop, weirdly. Oh, really? Wow, yeah. You're high. Wow, okay. Yeah, yeah. And I was just sent onto rugby field. Hemings go and play rugby. So, all right, I was terrible at rugby, but I was big, and that's it. Problem was, I was also extremely soft. And I remember at least two people. In my life, saying to me something along the lines of, but you're too soft to play rugby. And rather than accepting that and agreeing and going playing somewhere else, I took that as a challenge to prove to everybody that I wasn't this soft lad. And so I started to embody this like hyper macho rugby persona. And it was about 15, 16, around about that time. And for the next 10 years, I continued to do that. I went to university and I joined the rugby team even though I didn't want to. Because I felt like it was a badge of pride or something.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

Social status, yeah, it's big to me.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I was the worst rugby guy you could imagine on campus. And none of it was really me. It was a facade, it was make-believe. And because I was so confident, I was really good at make-believing and really good at pretending. And during that time, I got my first proper girlfriend relationship at 21, as I was just starting to soften a little bit in my last year of university. I have no female friends from my time at university. And I look back on those times now and I think, what a waste of 10 years. I had a really good time, but I didn't have the time that I could have had being myself, which would have been much richer than what I had. And so I look back on that and think that set me up for those challenges when my dad died when I was 26. That was it. That was where it came from. And it was only the death of my dad that was like the universe punching me in the face, saying, like, hey, what the hell have you been doing? The realization that all of this was just like madness. Like, what have I been doing? Chasing this, like, it's why my book was Be a Man, How Macho Culture Damages Us and How to Escape It. It wasn't about masculinity, it was about macho culture. Because that's what I'd been trying to prove to everybody around me the whole time that I was macho, that I was big and ardent strong all the time. And I wasn't, and I'm not, I'm very specifically not. And it was only about two years ago that my mum told me, and given what she knows I've been doing all these years, a bit annoying, but she said, When you were a kid, I had to tell your dad that you were not like the other two boys, that you were much softer. And I think my dad took that as a challenge because I think he was harder on me. Now, my dad, don't let me get you wrong, my dad came from a family background where like his dad was like made of stone. He was the most repressed, suppressed man I've ever met. And my dad broke free from that and was like loving and caring, and you know, he skyved off work to come and look after us, he cooks, he cleaned. Made my book I call him like transition man, because he was also still caught up in this boys don't cry mentality. So he did a good job. And I see with my brothers and their kids now, he did a great job of exampling fatherhood, but he still taught me not to cry and to be strong and to be tough. And I bought into that. I bought into that big time. And so, did I have mental health challenges during those times? No. Did it set me up for challenging mental health challenges? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 47:27

Just tell me a bit more about your dad because you've spoken really beautifully there about the type of father he was for you and your brothers and the type of husband he was to your mum. Just tell me before we get into the grief as well, what his name was, your relationship with him in more depth, and perhaps some of your favourite memories of your time together.

SPEAKER_02 47:48

So Bill, Bill Hemings and the relationship I had with him was obviously one of awe to begin with. And then, you know, once I get to like 12, 13, I was really fast. I was like an athlete. I started to be able to run faster than him, jump higher than him, lift heavier things like so. The glass starts to shatter a little bit. But what's interesting actually is looking back now, my dad had the opportunity many, many times to move into a directorship role with his company. And he never took it. He could have secured our family financially. You know, one year when all three of us were in private school, my parents had to take a loan out to pay for it, which they were still paying back like eight years later. Madness. And yet what he chose was time with his family. Because if he was a director, we were either going to have to move or he was going to have to travel. And he was like, I will not take my kids out of their life, and I will not miss them growing up. And instead, every Thursday when I was at primary school, he would come and run the football after school. And in the summer, he'd run the cricket after school. And of course, as a kid, you take that for granted. But I think back now, and I'm like, that was my dad doing that, nobody else's. So my relationship to him then was probably like most kids taking him for granted. But I look back now and I think, what a fucking badass for doing that. And for not choosing the nicer car and the bigger house and the paying off your mortgage, but choosing time with family, which also, given that he fucking died at 59, thank the Lord that he did. And I'm not even religious, right? So one of my favourite memories with him was standing in the garden, and we would do this regularly. We would just throw a ball back and forth. Tennis ball, cricket ball, that nerf vortex, the one that whistles when you throw it. We'd just throw it back and forth, and we talk about cricket and we talk about football and we talk about the world and we talk about whatever. And I'd be on the grass. And then obviously he'd start making the throws more difficult. And he'd be teaching me and he'd be challenging me because he was also a cricketer. And I think about those times so fondly now because that was just you see it in American films a lot with the kids with the baseball mitt and the dad. It was just that, but without the mitt, because we don't need a mitt to catch a ball. We were just throwing the ball back and forth and just chatting to each other. And I think about that now, and I think back that with so much fondness because that is something that is just so beautiful and so simple and yet so meaningful.

SPEAKER_01 50:33

As you were chatting there, having done so much research and work on the subject of how men can disclose or feel comfortable disclosing, right? I always say take the pressure off, do an activity, go for a walk, you know, don't allow the eye contact, get the shoulder to shoulder, have an objective in mind. And I'm just thinking that metronomic almost activity with your dad was probably a great way to release that disclosure and that pressure valve, wasn't it, for you to just have a chat and not feel like it had to be forced or pressurized for you to speak to him or he'd come home and say, kind of, tell me about your day at school, and then you just go, Oh, yeah, it was fine, it was fine.

SPEAKER_02 51:10

Absolutely, and it does help, and it did help. And I wish I had those conversations recorded, right? I wish I knew what we were talking about when I was 10 years old and we were throwing a ball back and forth for an hour, right? When my dad was supposed to be mowing the lawn or doing the gardening or something, and you know, he was skiving off from a schedule that he'd set himself, which is great. And yeah, it does, it does take the pressure off, and it and it did take the pressure off. And I'm certain that we were probably talking about how I could improve my batting technique in cricket or how I could, you know, we weren't talking about deep emotional stuff, but we were still connecting and bonding, and that's why it's so meaningful. So, yeah, an activity like that is brilliant. If you're working with young lads, get them out of a room, don't sit them in a room with you. Get them out of a room, kick a ball around, throw a ball, go for a walk, ask them what they want to do. Do you want to go and paint some Warhammer figurines and we'll do that together? Whatever it is, makes such a big difference.

SPEAKER_01 52:01

You spoke earlier about how you had this emotional privilege because you came from a stable background, you had the two parents, you felt emotionally safe. You were a big lad, but you had two, I imagine, even bigger lads for older brothers who could probably protect you in school. I'm the big little brother now, but yeah. So you've got all that going on for you. So when your dad did die, obviously it affects everyone in a huge way. But did it feel like more of a shock, perhaps, because you'd had this level of safety in your life. You maybe haven't gone through a huge grief prior, you hadn't gone through poverty or that level of hardship. Did you think it became as more of a shock, perhaps?

SPEAKER_02 52:38

I'm not sure if shock is the right word, but it definitely became uh it was a complete unknown. I've never had to navigate anything of this magnitude before. I'd lost grandparents, but they were in their 80s, right? I lost one grandparent when she was in her late 60s, but she smoked 60 fags a day, so like, come on, grandma. And I hadn't had to deal with anything like this. And that grief was so uh I want to say it was so overwhelming, but I did not allow it to overwhelm me. I remember getting a call. I was out at a mini festival in the northern quarter in Manchester, and I got a call from my mum to say you need to come home. I lived with my mates in Manchester, you need to come home this weekend because your dad's just been told that he's only got a few months to live. And I was just like, okay, alright. Well, that sucks, but I'm out at a festival right now, so I'll give you a call later. Right. Alright, Chris, what you doing, man? Alright, so probably went to get a drink, probably went to go and do some cocaine in the bathroom, went and found my mates, probably didn't tell them, and just got on with my night because I didn't want to be the guy that brought the mood down, right? We're at a party, and then I do go home that weekend, and I remember my dad saying to me, I'm not gonna see you. It's interesting that I'm saying this because I'm expecting myself to cry, but I am now so far into the grief or through the grief. Usually when I talk about this, I start to well up and I'm expecting it to happen. I'm partly disappointed that it'll happen because it'd be good for the podcast. But like, it doesn't happen any money because I've processed it so much, which is really interesting because I'm getting so far away from this now. So I remember him sitting me down and saying, I'm not gonna see you get married, I'm not gonna see you have kids. And that is the thing that makes me more sad than anything because both my brothers got married and had their kids. And all I could say to him was, yeah, but think how much you have seen. My co-host Jet refers to this as happy talk. You immediately read for the positive, yeah. Yeah, but think how much you have seen, you've seen me do this, you've seen me do that. Like, you know, I couldn't meet him. And you know what? I berated myself for that for some time, but I think back now, and like I didn't have the tools to deal with that conversation. That's not my fault that I couldn't deal with that. If anything, he's partly responsible for the fact that I couldn't meet him in that conversation because he hadn't trained me to meet him in that conversation. I'm sad that that happened. I don't blame myself for that anymore. And then when he actually died, I just so we were in this hospice, Willowwood Hospice, which is a beautiful place, and actually made me make a documentary about hospices some time or later because they're so incredible what they do at hospices. And he was basically in the long breathing death stage, and it was going on for fucking ages to the point where we're making jokes like, fuck's sake, dad, like we've got shit to do, man. Like, you know, trying to bring some gallows humor in. Anyway, me and my brothers go for a curry, and the last thing I ever say to my dad before he died was, I'm gonna get extra spicy, just how you like it. Because the joke in our family was whenever we had curry, we couldn't have any spicy curry even in the house because my mum would just collapse if it was any spice. Like, mum's coma was legendary, but it was like coma, coma, right? So I made that joke, and then basically we get a call halfway through the meal, like, you need to come back here. And then by the time we got there, he died. Now, my eldest brother let out this huge sound of grief, and I will forever regret that I shouted at him and said, Stop, don't do that. Because I couldn't handle it. I couldn't handle that level of grief, I didn't know what to do with it, so I couldn't handle somebody else expressing it. Like, I want to say it's selfish, but it's not, it was like self-preservation, and from that moment on I maybe had a couple of small cries. And the thing that was the weirdest of all looking back, when I did this, like looking back at myself and retelling my own story for my book, and like when I was in schools, one of the stories he was telling the schools was at my dad's funeral, I felt a sense of pride that I didn't cry whilst delivering his eulogy. That is fucked up. I walked off the altar, I don't know what it's called in a church, I walked off that place and I sat down and I was basically just like, fuck yeah, I didn't cry in front of all these people because that's what my dad would have wanted, which it is, which it is what he would have wanted, which is so fucked up about it. That's so messed up, that's what he would have wanted. That's why I didn't cry because that's what he would have wanted. But what nobody saw was just as his coffin arrived and we were about to put it on our shoulders, I said to people that I needed a piss, and actually what I did was I ran around the corner of the church where no one could see me. I power cried for like 30 seconds, whacked myself up, and then came back and then did it. Just so no one could see. Think how many hoops I'm jumping through there not to be seen in grief. I was so ashamed of the fact that I was struggling, that I didn't want anybody to see, even though my fucking dad had died. So clearly there's still some anger left in me, even if there's not deep sorrow. Like so much anger at the way that I had been socialized, and not just by my dad, by everything in culture. I went to an all-boys' private school, like Jesus fucking Christ. So I had no toolbox. And the joke I make now is that I opened my toolbox and there was nothing in it, so I just filled it with cocaine. And you know what? It worked for a while. Until it didn't. And then it all came crashing down.

SPEAKER_00 58:41

When did you find peace with your dad's death?

SPEAKER_02 58:50

One of my really good friends, Charlie, died in 2019. It was a rough few years. And during the course of grieving for him, with an entirely different approach, I might add. I think I also wrapped up the loose ends of my grieving for my dad. It was a very similar process. I could express differently and I could engage differently, and I worked through it very differently than I did with, you know, I'm like hosting this cabaret at this festival, and I'm like reading something that Charlie had written and like crying in front of a crowd, and like, okay. And then going on stages and talking about my dad's death and all of this, and like owning it, owning it, owning it. And then realizing, like, oh, okay. I can look back now and say that I didn't do very well, but that I am doing now. And so it was only really through like going through the next big grieving process that I realized, ah, okay, yeah. So around about 2019, I would say. So, like what, five years it took probably to really come to terms with it and be okay with it. To where people would say, meeting new people, oh, like, oh, my dad died. Where I'd put my hand out to them and say, it's okay, like I'm okay about it. Whereas previously I wasn't okay about it. So I wouldn't say that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:09

I imagine after your dad's death, eventually, once you found peace with it, that you were able to, or it perhaps made you have more gratitude for your family members still alive, your brothers, your mum, maybe invest more time into them than you were perhaps previously. However, with Charlie, you're both not old at this point comparatively. When he died, did it make you more grateful for life in a different way? Did it make you take actions or positive actions on your mental or physical health that you hadn't perhaps done prior to?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:41

No, I was already on that journey. So Charlie, Charlie had two older brothers. And no, sorry. Charlie had an older brother, and both he and his brother were diagnosed with an exceedingly rare aggressive form of cancer. Wow. So Charlie's older brother, Nick, died before I met Charlie. When I met Charlie, he was very clear that there was a time bomb inside him that was going to go off at any point. And I mean, I used to make the joke about him that like he'd had so much bowel removal that he basically had the old kid's game kaplunk inside his like it was like a bag of bones. Yeah. It was it was ridiculous. And I have never met somebody with such an incredible grasp of existentialism as Charlie. So much so that at his funeral, like we were what we considered to be his best mates. There were groups of mates that he had that we didn't even know that he had because he just knew so many people. He was so just busy living life. He also came from a privileged background, so he had the financial backing to be able to do it. But even when I first met him, I like fell in love with his attitude towards life, and I still have that today. So what Charlie gave me was life is short, live it as much as you can, enjoy it, do what is good for you, and make decisions that as long as they're not like overly selfish and harm others, but make sure you do what you want to do with your life because it's only short, you only get one go around. And actually, weirdly, during the time when I was really struggling after that false allegation and I was suicidal, my dad came to me in the only time I've ever dreamed about him, and he looked at me in the eye and he said, Son, you can only kill yourself once. And I like woke up and I was like, Okay, well, I'm not doing that then. Thanks, dad. And it was this sense of like, don't do that because you only get one go at this, so make the most of it. Like keep going. And that was Charlie's message always was just like, we have to just have fun. Let's just do the most fun ever. We even threw him like a goodbye New Year party, and ironically, he got another fucking year, because of course he did. But at his good year new year party, he got a text from some hot chick on his phone, and he was like, peace out, guys, I'm going, cuz whatever. And we were all left behind, just like, yeah, all right, that makes sense because that's our mate. I'm like, what are we gonna do? Tell him he has to stay. So Charlie taught me a lot like that. I was already on my mental health development journey at that point, and you know, during Charlie's funeral, I was just sitting, just sobbing the entire time, and not feeling an ounce of shame about it because I'd come that far in all of those years.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:29

Let's reflect on your mental health journey now, mate. So, first of all, if your dad or Charlie were listening to this podcast, what would you say to them? And what do you think they would say to you?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:40

Well, I Jet and I had this conversation on an episode recently, and I don't know what my dad would make of the work that I do. I don't know how he would respond to the fact that I am a therapist and I specialize in helping men talk about their feelings. Like my specialism is if you've not been to therapy before and you don't know what the hell you're doing, let's chat. I don't know how he would even deal with that information. But the one thing that I can say about my dad is that he would be curious. He would have been curious, he would have wanted to know more. He might have been really challenged by some stuff. He was really challenged by lots of things. He was quite a small C conservative. But what I'd say to him now, and I actually wrote this in the dedication to my book, I wrote, Thank you to my dad for teaching me to be strong, and thank you to my mum for teaching me I didn't always have to be. And so I would thank my dad because what I did do for a time is once I'd started reading around men and masculinity, I disavowed my masculinity. I went completely a masculine for a while. And then I realized sometime later, like that's not helpful either. I flipped the pendulum to the other side. And I forgot that a lot of what my dad taught me was really fucking useful to dust myself down, to stand back up, to try again, to be brave and courageous and strong. And of course, what I've done and what many others are doing now is co-opting those terms and pointing them in a healthier direction than previously. But those lessons that he taught me were really useful and helpful, and they still help me today. So I would say thank you to him. As I did on his deathbed, I said thank you to him. Thank you for everything you've done for us, and thank you for the life you created for me, and thank you for creating me. And the overly confident monster that you created is because he had so much faith in my ability. And the only other thing I'd say to him would be the single best thing my dad ever said, I wasn't supposed to hear. I'd failed my A levels. Failed my A levels. I got B's and C's, fucking failed. Private school bullshit. Anyway, I didn't do as well in my A levels as I should have done. Or I could have done. I let myself down. I just didn't give a shit. And my mum's crying, my dad's sitting in the car with her, and I'm going to the pub with my mates, cause whatever. And I open the boot to get a bag or something out of the car. And I hear my mum say, What are we going to do about Chris? My oldest brother went to Oxford, and my other brother is like a captain of industry, and I'm still figuring out what I'm doing with my life. And my dad said, What do you mean? We never have to worry about Chris. Chris is going to be just fine. And I'm like, That's what I thought. That's what I thought. I always thought, like, I don't need these exams to be okay in the world. I don't want to be some guy who works 70 hour weeks and earns a million quid a year. I don't, that's never what I wanted. I was originally going to be a sports coach until I got caught with weed at Glastonbury. And then I couldn't be a sports coach because I got a criminal record. So I'd ask him, hey man, why didn't you tell me that? Maybe he didn't think I needed to know. But I would love to know the answer to that. Because that was the coolest thing I ever heard him say about me, and he didn't even say it to me, he said it to my mum and I wasn't supposed to hear.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:09

Similar question as the first topic now. What has this mental health journey taught you about yourself?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:17

Uh that I'm fallible, that I can break, that I can be in the darkest depths, and I can stand back up and I can keep going. And the best analogy for this I've heard is as men, I ask my clients this like name the strongest tree you can imagine, and 99% say an oak tree. And I say, Well, that's great. An oak tree is extremely firm and rigid. What's the problem with that? Is that if a force comes along that's greater than the rigidity of the tree, it will break and it will break permanently and it will be done. When actually, one of the strongest trees that exist is a palm tree. Because what a palm tree has learned to do is it can bend and flex to the point where it's almost on the ground, and then over the course of the next few days, it will stand itself back up again. And now there is actually one variety of oak tree that grows in like Hurricane Alley in the south of America, in the southern states of America, but it's learned to be smaller and fatter. So if you want to be the oak tree that stands through the storm, you have to reduce yourself in order to do so. Well, I don't want to do that. I want to stand tall. But if I want to stand tall, I have to also accept that I need to ride it, and sometimes I need to lie flat. And I hate that it's one of my favourite lyrics of all time, but Ronan Keating said it best when he said life as a roller coaster, just gotta ride it. Because it's fucking true.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:52

That's come up twice on this podcast now. Great stuff. Yes, it's such a good lyric. And as a final question, mate, if you could go back and talk to the Chris who had just lost his dad in the depths of that grief and coping with unhelpful vices, shall we say? The Chris who was going viral and perhaps didn't quite know how to handle it, or the Chris who was about to start men's therapy hub, what would you say to him, knowing what you do now, if anything at all?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:19

If I got to choose from those three, I would go back to when I was grieving my dad or not grieving my dad. And I would say, actually, when I was doing the cabaret performance that I told you about where I spoke about Charlie, I actually called Charlie's brother just before it. And I told him what I was gonna do. And he said, Do you know what, Chris? And it's interesting, I don't remember saying this. He said, Do you know what, Chris? When I was really struggling after the death of Charlie, I said something to him that changed his outlook and his approach on it. And what I said to him was, it's okay to be scared, it's okay to be sad, it's okay to not know what you're doing, it's okay to be a fucking mess. And it's okay to stand up afterwards, after all of that, and say, I'm still okay, I'm still alright. Because I didn't do the first bit, I just did the standing up. I would go back and I would grab myself by the face and be like, hey, it's okay to be sad. You're allowed to be a mess here. I was dragged off air at the BBC because I'm a semi-professional cricketer and I'm on air at the BBC and I've forgotten the name of the English cricket captain because I'm so hungover from the night before and I'm on air with BBC Manchester. Like, but I didn't want anybody to see that I was struggling, but everybody could see. The head of BBC North came and put his arm around me and was like, Chris, go home. Nobody thinks any less of you, but I did. So I'd want to give myself permission, and that's what I tried to do with so many men now is give them permission. I would go back and I would give myself permission. Go and be sad. It's okay, man. Nobody thinks any less of you for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:03

Our final topic of conversation, Chris, and it's one I try and have with all of my special guests if we have time. It is a general natter and quickfire chat about our mental health. So, firstly, how is your mental health?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:14

Right now, well, right now I just found out that I've got to be kicked out of my rental accommodation and I've got to find somewhere to live. And in the middle of this, we're trying to buy a house. So I might have to move a house before I buy a house. So over the last few days, I've started to have some cortisol stress spikes and I've worked really hard not to have them, and I'm really fucking annoyed about it. So right now my mental health is probably around about 60, 70%.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:38

So that's probably a five out of ten? Yeah, five, six out of ten. Okay. Well, hopefully it improves to you soon, mate. What age were you when you became self-aware of your mental health and you realized that the feelings you were having weren't physical and they were actually in your mind?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:53

Uh 32 would be when I really got to grips with it all and felt like I could actually name what was happening to me quite confidently. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:03

And was it a eureka moment or a gradual process? Gradual process. Okay. Can you remember, if you can, the first conversation you ever had with someone about your mental health? So who was it with? What did you say? And did it feel like the big moment or weight had been lifted stereotypically, or something quite easy, natural, and normal to do?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:21

Well, it was a conversation I told you about earlier with Rob when we were watching the Lions after my dad's death. And I didn't know then it was about my mental health. I just knew I had some stuff to say. And it was very difficult at first. And each conversation I've had since has become easier and easier and easier and easier and easier. So it was very hard to begin with.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:40

What things do you find in life, mate, that trigger your mental health? So it could be things people say to you, a sound, smell, taste, sensation, or have you not figured all of them out yet? I definitely haven't figured them all out.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:51

The biggest trigger I have is people being actively mistreated. I have been brought up with a deep sense of fairness, which was why what happened to me online was so challenging because I felt it was so unfair. I even watched a TV programme called Euphoria. My wife showed it for the first time last night, and some guy gets beaten up after one of the female characters wrongly tells her ex that he raped her. And I had to say to my wife, like, hey, you probably should have given me a warning about that based on what you know about my false allegation history and also the sense of fairness. And she was just like, Whoopsie. So, like, not her fault, right? But so that's a big one for me is senses of fairness. And like, particularly when people speak to me in a way that I would never speak to people. I really struggle with that. Like, if friends flip out and speak to me in a way that is really not fair and friendly, I really struggle with that because like I don't speak to people that way. I've worked really hard not to. I probably did in my past, so maybe I'm getting some come-uppance, right? But that's a big challenge for me because I want to meet people with kindness and compassion as much as I can.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:03

If you're ever not sure, mate, a website that I use is called does the dogdie.com, which gives you themes of TV shows and films, and it has helped me. And I try and avoid putting trigger warnings on stuff unless it's really, really dark stuff. And I definitely have things that I avoid when it comes to film and TV content. There's only a few topics, but they are pretty damaging for me if I do watch stuff related to them. So if I do think it's gonna perhaps be about it, or I'm not sure, quick little Google, find the website, just have a little check. And if it's like not the themes that come up, I'm like, absolutely great. Conversely, then, what positive tools and methods do you use to improve your mental health or help you feel better? Which ones have worked and maybe which ones that you've tried but haven't?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:43

Name it. Name it, name it, name it, name it, name it. Every time, name it. What's happening? Okay, right now I'm feeling aggrieved. Okay, why am I feeling aggrieved? Okay, because this has happened. Is it reasonable that I feel aggrieved about that? No, actually, it's not. Oh, okay, then I wonder why I am doing. Or yes, actually it is. And actually, if you read the Stoics, that's really what they're talking about. Is get to know your feelings, name them, understand them, and then you can choose whether or not it is a reasonable response. And if it's not a reasonable response, try to figure out why.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:14

What is the best book, or as I call it, mental health Bible you've read for your mental health? Now it can be mental health or self-help related, doesn't exclusively have to be, it can be fiction. And if you can't think of a book, album, TV show, any piece of popular culture.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:26

Well, interestingly enough, and I'm gonna sound like such a classic male feminist here, but reading Bell Hooke's A Will to Change, it's not necessarily a mental health or self-help book, but it was a book where a woman, obviously, speaking compassionately about men in a way that I'd never heard anybody do before, revolutionized the way that I thought about myself. It was, oh yeah, I am a victim of this socialization. I didn't choose this. This is something that was inflicted upon me. Huh, okay. Now that's not to say that I don't take accountability for my behaviours within it. But it is to say, you know, the kind of goodwill hunting, like, it's not your fault, it's not your fault, it's not your fault. Really helpful for me because from that point on I stopped blaming myself. And once I stopped blaming myself, I could point that energy in a positive direction to say, okay, well, how can I change my own experience and therefore the experience of others too? So Bell Hooks are will to change.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:27

If there was a mantra in life that summed up your mental health, what would it be and why?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:34

Um, my granddad used to take me golfing, and when I first started, obviously I was terrible, still am to be fair. I kicked a ball out of the rough and he said to me, Son, you have to play it as it lies. It's a great metaphor for life. I was like, What? It's like 11 years old. Like, what are you talking about? Like, I didn't cheat. Obviously, I did. And actually, the true notion of play it as it lies is sometimes your ball's gonna be in the middle of the fairway, ready to go onto the green. Sometimes your ball's gonna be deep in the rough in the forest, and you might not even be able to find it for a while. But when you do, that's where it is. And you're only cheating yourself if you pick it up and you throw it onto the fairway to make it easier. You're not dealing with the reality of the situation that you're in. Now I know that for some people the reality of the situation that they're in is absolutely horrific. But to ignore the reality is to do yourself a disservice because particularly what we do as men is we'll take drugs, we'll drink, we'll gamble, we'll run away, we'll overwork, we'll do anything to pretend that our ball is not deeply buried in the rough.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:46

Our pain looks different to what my mainstream describes it as. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:50

Right. And it might take you 50 hacks to get the ball out of the rough, but the next time the ball's in that deep rough, it'll take you 49 because you learn something, right? And it will get better and it will get easier over time if you allow it. But the saddest stories I ever experienced were these men who've had these huge traumas happen in their life, and all they've done the rest of their life is try to pretend like it didn't. Yeah. And their life has gone terribly ever since that. What do you love about yourself? I'm reluctant to say my height, but that is giving me spoof.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:25

You're speaking to a five foot ten lad here, mate. Be careful.

unknown 1:18:28

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:28

Well, I'm six foot three, I feel like I'm the ideal height, so that's always one thing. But what I like about myself is all right, this is good. So I live in Denmark now. Denmark has a thing called a yendolo. The concept of yandolo is you'll never see people driving their sports cars around the city in Denmark. Just don't see it, right? Denmark is anti-flashy. Don't talk yourself up. Don't think you're better than other people. Don't be arrogant. Don't be. So when I first came here, people were confused by me because I mean I grew up in Manchester, right? So we're like whatever the opposite of Yandolo is. So I was explaining this to a woman. I was at a party on the weekend, and I was explaining this to this to this woman. Because I was making a joke that I knew this DJ, but I didn't know she was a DJ. She's a friend of mine, but I didn't know she was. And I was like, I guess she doesn't talk herself up as much as I do. And this woman was like, Yeah, well, you know, Yandolo and all that. And I was like, Yeah, but you know what's weird about Yandolo is speaking to lots of Danes about this, is I talk myself up not all the time, and only now I talk myself up in areas where I believe it is actually real. But what Danes do, and what a lot of people do, is they talk themselves down all the time. And when you're thinking about an energy exchange, if you're constantly talking yourself down, well, how's that going to work out for you long term? I am confident and I do talk myself up, and I sometimes skirt the boundaries of being arrogant, and so it really challenges some people. But I don't think that I'm the greatest person ever. I don't think that I'm the best at everything. I'm not Donald Trump, but the things that I am good at, I do talk myself up. So I'm doing it right now. I'm good at talking myself up when I feel like deserved. Yes. And sometimes that's gonna fall and fail, and that's a learning curve. But I would much rather talk myself up a little more than I deserve than talk myself down. Because in the end, I'm gonna be more confident walking through life and I'm gonna feel better about who I am. It's why people do affirmation work. It's the same thing. Affirm yourself, don't denigrate yourself all the time because you'll start to believe it.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:36

And as a final question, mate, and it's been an absolutely brilliant conversation. What more do you think we have to do to ensure men from all backgrounds, all classes, all walks of life feel comfortable and safe in opening up about their mental health issues or just their general mental health, if most importantly, they want to do it?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:55

We have to dismantle the idea of universal male privilege. We have to dismantle this idea that just as simply the fact that you've been born male, that you have been born 2-0 up. Because it is simply incorrect. I was born 1-0 up, maybe 2-0 up. Absolutely. But most guys, they weren't.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:16

The stats are very obvious. Most people are struggling school are men, and then it's Caribbean boys for backgrounds, and then you know the stats are there.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:23

At schools in the UK, white working class boys have the lower socioeconomic opportunities than anybody. And we're gonna tell those boys that they're privileged. You're gonna tell some young black lads on an estate in East London that they're privileged when they've got nothing. Or toxic. And there's either or there's no social support network for them because fucking Cameron et al. dismantled it. There are a small handful of men at the very top of society who are insanely wealthy and privileged. But you know what? As we talked about earlier, they're also fucking miserable. I mean, look at Elon Musk, right? Like, there are clearly men who are at the top who are also struggling because this structure doesn't make them feel good about themselves either.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:05

Or his kids, you know, that's a whole separate thing, you know. Right. He's got loads of them and not great relationships with a lot of them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:11

Exactly. So this idea that all men are universally privileged just by the fact that they have been born male, actually, what it does is it upholds the patriarchy by telling men, well, you are privileged, therefore you don't get to show pain. And actually, by telling men they don't get to show pain, we are only continuing this idea of the patriarchy that men have it all. And if we allow men to show pain, we are going to slowly start to dismantle that thing that we call the patriarchy over time. It is an oxymoron almost. It is self-defeating to tell men that they're all privileged. Because, sure, okay, I had financial privilege, I had emotional privilege. But going to an all-boys school, I had a deep sense of I wasn't allowed to show any fear or pain, and that messed me up over time. So it's like, yeah, both can be true at the same time. So to dismantle this idea of universal male privilege is gonna be the biggest hurdle that we can take down that means men are gonna feel less of a burden. And I'll end on this note for No Man's an Island, I interviewed Ellen O'Donohue, who is the CEO of James's Place. Now, James is just a brilliant charity, interviewed many people from it. Right. And I asked what the biggest barrier was, and she said, the thing that they come across most, and these are men who at the depths of despair, suicidal, the thing that they come across most is these men saying, I shouldn't be here. Somebody else is more worthy of this space than me. And you're like, my dude, this space was set up specifically for you right now, and yet this privilege idea means that these men think, no, no, somebody is more worthy of it than me. There's always somebody more worthy of care than me because I'm a man. Bullshit. You are worthy of care.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:03

Mate, that is such a beautiful and great point to end it on. Thank you so much for coming on the Just Checking In podcast and talking to me, brother.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:12

Privilege. Thank you so much, Freddie. Love your work, and I'll uh speak to you soon.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:20

Well, that's all we've got time for in this episode of the Just Checking In Podcast. A big thank you to Chris for being my special guest and for letting me check in with him. I'll put some links to where you can find out more about the work Empath and Men's Therapy Hub does and follow them on social media in the show notes. As always, thank you to all the vendors who tuned into this episode. Remember, if you've liked what you've heard, I'll sign us off by saying give it a share on social media by tagging us at VentHelp UK all one word. Tell your friends, family, or work colleagues about us and spread the word about what we're doing. If you want to help us further, you can also give us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to support us even further, you can also go to patreon.com slash ventshelpuk or make a one-off donation to our PayPal. All of those links are on our link tree. That's linktr.ee slash vent helpuk. We hope to check in with you again very soon. And remember guys, it is always okay to vent.