Matt Brown - She Is Not Your Rehab: One Mans Journey to Healing and the Global Anti-Violence Movement He Inspired

I WROTE THIS BOOK on behalf of every kid who ever lived in a home of violence and abuse. The ones who had all their dreams kicked out of them. I wrote this for you. Because I am you.

And Im here to say that its possible to change the narrative. Its possible to eventually be everything we never got.

Im living proof that a kid raised in violence and abuse for the first 15 years of his life can dream of being something else.

And then be something else.

And I wrote this book in honour of my Mum.

But more than dedicating all the words on these pages to you, I dedicate my life, in honour of you, Mum, to healing. In the hope that anyone who reads this book may find some insight into the prevention of the sad eyes you carried every day of the life that we shared. Those eyes your eyes were imprinted onto my spirit.

I love you and I look forward to the day you embrace and lecture me again.

May your memory be a revolution.

I WRITE IN DEDICATION and gratitude for every single man who has ever sat in my barbershop. This book is in honour of you. This book is in gratitude for our conversations, our laughs and our tears. I count those as the trophies of my barbering career I am most proud of.

Many of you were born to Mothers who survived more than thrived, and Fathers who, sadly, never showed up for you in quite the way you needed; because they truly didnt know how to even show up for themselves. Because of this, so many of us werent adequately loved or nurtured in the ways we so desperately desired and needed. Some of you could easily be dead after all you have endured.

My heart is with you, Brothers. I see you and acknowledge your pain. There are generations of abuse and trauma that have moulded and conditioned you into the men you are today. If only we could have a greater understanding of generational trauma: that you can take the child out of the trauma, but it can take years to take the trauma out of the child.

So I take this moment to be with each of you, my beloved Brothers. For just existing, when many times you may not have wanted to do even that. The journey has been long and arduous, and I thank you for choosing to still be with us.

Please understand that this book takes you how you are, where you are, but my desire is, ultimately, that it moves you further on your journey.

Changing you is not my goal and not my job; change is the inevitable outcome of real growth, so I hope this book grows you and your capacity to make lasting change for yourself, and for your future generations. I have found that there really are no successful quick fixes.

There is no judgement here because, after years of talking with men of all ages and nationalities, I have been privileged to see underneath the hardest of exteriors, behind masks of all shapes and sizes, to see a side of men that is so raw and beautiful. We were each born to love and be loved. I havent met a man yet who doesnt, at the deepest level, desire this for his life.

I believe that the nature of life is that we are either growing or dead, and I have personally encountered many men who are like the walking dead, merely just existing.

This book, I hope, brings life into the places inside you that have been dead for longer than you care to admit. I pray that the insights found here are helpful in your journey to healing and wholeness.

I will keep it real, black and white, straight to the point, as I know us men prefer.

This is a book for you.

But this book is also for me. Its the book I wish Id had when I started my path of healing. So I write all this to me, too, as a reminder.

There is no judgement here because, after years of talking with men of all ages and nationalities, I have been privileged to see underneath the hardest of exteriors, behind masks of all shapes and sizes, to see a side of men that is so raw and beautiful. We were each born to love and be loved. I havent met a man yet who doesnt, at the deepest level, desire this for his life.

She Is Not Your Rehab is written simply because no other living person can be or do that for us. The price is much too high and comes at too great a cost. Our healing cannot come at the expense of our life partners, and all too often I have seen that approach where men dump their problems on their women and it fails. It fails because its too big a burden to pass on to someone else. Her wellbeing, and her own journey into healing, cant take that extra load. And its not hers to take.

In my years of barbering I have listened intently to the men in my chair, and I have truly heard the pain of a collective broken heart.

This book is my response.