Gregory L. Ph.D. Jantz - Battles Men Face: Strategies to Win the War Within

H e was the president of a large regional company with multiple locations and almost a thousand employees. He owned two homes and a vacation bungalow on the coast. In his midfifties, he was fit and energetic, at least when Id seen him in public at social functions. On this day, though, he was hunched over and deflated.

I just dont get it, he admitted. If I want something to happen in business, all I have to do is place a couple of calls and its done. If I say go, things move; if I say stop, they do. I seem to have control over everything around me but me. His voice got very quiet. And if I dont find a way to get myself under control, I could lose everything I value and worked so hard for.

Ill never forget that daybut not because what he said was so unique. Ive heard the same thing, in one form or another, many times from people at a loss to understand why they cant control their slide toward disaster. I remember that day because it was a reminder that people who are powerful on the outside can still feel powerless on the inside, just like everyone else.

Another reason I remember this conversation is because it was a man talking. From the time I started counseling, most of my clients have been women. Thats been slowly changing over the past several years, but even today the majority of people seen at my clinic are women. There seems to be a higher hurdle for men in our culture to admit they need help and to seek out counseling. Its even more remarkable to find a powerful man admitting he isnt able to fix things on his own. Here was a man firmly in charge of others but unable to control himself.

Men have a long history of being in charge of all sorts of thingsexcept themselves. This lack of self-control in private can threaten to undo a lifetime of work and accomplishment in other, more public, arenas. Just like the executive that day, men can become frustrated and bewildered because what works to control the people in their lives fails to control their self.

Today, men continue to become enmeshed in compulsive behaviors that are destructive to their health, their work, and their sense of self, as well as to the ones they love. Sometimes it is the men who are fully in control of other aspects of their lives who find themselves trapped in secret compulsions. And sometimes it is these men who try and try to make progress toward change but end up sinking deeper and deeper into the compulsion for all that effort.

I get it. Im a guy. I run my own business. I have people who work for me, and my job is to help other people figure out how to do whats right for them. I spend my life showing people how to take the necessary steps to change their lives for good. Yet, with all of that, I stumble myself. I know what to do, but I dont always do it. Its easy for me to take up the lament of the apostle Paul, who said in Romans 7:15, I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. Just like other men, I can easily find myself doing the very thing I hate.

So, while I am a counselor, Im also a man who understands this strange world we inhabit, where were told were not in charge but often are expected to be; where taking action seems so natural but sometimes leads us down a very dark path; where weve been taught to elevate certain aspects of our personalities while burying others, only to find those buried parts continually trying to surface.

Im also a Christian. I recognize that not everyone reading this book will be, and thats okay. I just want to be up front about who I am and where Im coming from. If anything, this book is about men being honest, so it would be ridiculous, really, to try to cover up an essential part of who I am. Im going to offer a lot of thoughts and examples and reasons in this book. Youre not required to agree with every one. All I ask is that you give me a fair hearing.

As men, we really are in chargeat least of ourselves. We have free will. We may want to overlook our decisions or dismiss their consequences or blame others, but we are in charge, even when were doing the very thing we hate. The difficulty is in knowing which part of us is in charge when we do the things we hatewhere that part gets its power and how to take the power back. Thats what this book is about. Its about how to stop doing the things you hate and take back control of your life and choices.

The WHAT

This book is set up in three sections to help you navigate the way to freedom from compulsive patterns. The first section is called The WHAT and will outline those behaviors particularly entangling to men.

Pornography

I said earlier that the ratio of women to men in my counseling practice has changed over the years, and one of the driving factors is the prevalence of pornography. This is a tremendously dangerous snare to many men. With the breadth of content available on the internet and the amoral reach of search engines, we live in an age uniquely designed for the lust of the eyes. Pornography is easily accessible, infinitely varied, and, for some men, incredibly compelling.