The fire popped, scattering embers into the Cornish darkness. Around it, a circle of men. A circle I was desperately trying to belong to, all while feeling like a complete fraud for even trying.
This was “Enter the Arena,” a men’s retreat led by Daniel Tidall and Make Ready Men. I’ve known Daniel and his Brotherhood for two years. I’ve done the therapy. I’m even studying to become a therapist myself. I walked in with more knowledge, sure. But knowledge is a flimsy shield against the gut punch of your own insecurity.
I went because I’m lost. I’m a husband. A father. A student in a field dominated by women. And somewhere in the beautiful, complicated mess of that life, I’d quietly mislaid my own damn self, my own sense of what it means to be a man. Not what I’m told to be, but what I feel it is. This weekend was a frantic, hopeful grab for a thread that might lead me back.
What hit me first was the sound. The low, unfamiliar rumble of only men’s voices. This wasn’t locker-room bravado or corporate posturing. This was different: a conscious, intentional space. Its rarity in my life felt like a condemnation. “When was the last time I was just… with men? Not performing, not providing, just being? ” The answer was never. The absence of it ached.
Then came the fear.
Sitting on a rough-hewn log, the fire baked the front of my body while the damp Cornish night chilled my back. Woodsmoke filled my lungs, a sharp, dirty scent that clashed with the stale fear in my throat. That familiar, sickening knot tightened in my stomach. It was the urge to contort. To perform. To find the right version of ‘me’ that would be acceptable to the ex-special forces guy to my left, the unshakable corporate leader to my right, the psychotherapists who wore their confidence like a second skin.
My mind screamed: “You are not enough. You are not hard enough. You are not smart enough. You are a boy pretending to be a man in a room full of real ones.”
And in that moment, a ghost from my past flickered in the firelight. I remembered why I’d come. Two years earlier, in a circle like this, I had performed the same exact vanishing act. I had folded my authentic self into a small, silent box and presented a carefully constructed forgery, all for a few crumbs of acceptance.
But this time was different. This time, I was awake for the betrayal.
I could feel the impulse in my muscles, the slight lean forward, the readiness of an agreeable nod. I could hear the internal editor scrambling to draft a persona they would like. I saw the small, frightened child inside me, frantically building a barricade against shame. I noticed the lifelong, creative adjustments, the twists and knots I’d tied my soul into, all to survive.
The awareness was a gut punch. It didn’t stop the fear. It didn’t magically fix me.
Maybe it was the exhaustion from the thud of gloves on pads hours earlier, but the armour I’d spent a lifetime polishing finally felt too heavy to wear. It cracked. Just a hairline fracture. And through it, for one searing second, something honest breathed.
The self-hatred was so thick I could taste it… until I caught the eye of the ex-soldier across from me. In the firelight, I didn’t see a warrior. I saw a tiredness around his eyes, a vulnerability he wasn’t trying to hide. I saw a man. And in that moment, the projection I’d placed on him shattered.
I wasn’t sitting in a circle of warriors and leaders. I was sitting in a circle of men, period. And every single one of them, I realised, had probably fought that same demon of doubt on their way here. My vulnerability wasn’t my weakness; it was my ticket in.
The weekend wasn’t about fixing me. It was about seeing myself, clearly and without mercy, in the reflection of other men who were brave enough to do the same. It was about hearing my own voice, shaky and raw, speak a hard truth into the fire and have it met not with judgment, but with a simple, powerful nod.
I left with my questions unanswered. But the knots had loosened. I left with a flicker of something I hadn’t felt in a long time: the quiet realisation that the most masculine thing a man can do is to finally, and without apology, just be himself.
An Acknowledgement
Daniel, Nick, Adam and the men of Make Ready Men, this space you forge is nothing short of alchemy. You took a bunch of strangers and built a container strong enough to hold our deepest fears and our most fragile hopes. Your facilitation wasn’t about guiding; it was about grounding. It was in the fierce, non-judgmental silence you held that we finally found the courage to speak. It was in your unwavering pursuit of this work that we found permission to do our own.
You didn’t offer answers. You offered a mirror, and the steadfast courage for each of us to look into it. For that, I am deeply and lastingly grateful. Thank you for holding the space for my armour to crack.
https://www.instagram.com/makereadymen/
Author Bio: A 33-year-old psychotherapy student, husband, father, and former firefighter & construction worker from Warsop, Nottinghamshire, navigating the complex intersection of class, masculinity, and mental health.
The Lost Caveman 