A grounded reflection on how men can reclaim their centre through mentoring that honours grief, identity, and renewal.
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” — Rumi
Why this work exists
When people hear the word mentoring, they often think of leadership programmes or professional development — men helping men climb ladders or improve performance. But what I’ve learned about mentoring men after more than 30 years working with men in crisis is that real mentoring has very little to do with productivity. It’s about guidance, not the end goal.
I’ve sat with men who were homeless, men with active addictions, men living with mental illness, and men who’d run out of language for what was happening inside them: different stories, same silence. Beneath the struggle, most were asking a quiet question: How do I get my footing back?
Part of the challenge with therapy — and I say this with deep respect for it — is that it often starts with admitting that something is wrong. For many men, that’s an enormous hurdle. As men, we have been raised to see asking for help as a sign of weakness and vulnerability, and to see it as a risk. But mentoring meets a man in a different place. It begins not with what’s broken, but with what’s still working — with competence, agency, and the desire to rebuild from there.
That’s the space I aimed to create when I built Mentoring Through The Maze — a place where men could regain clarity without being diagnosed, and rediscover purpose without needing to be fixed.
Journeying Through My Maze
The name stems from my own life experiences. I’ve navigated my share of mazes — grief, loss of faith, divorce, and the long journey of coming out in midlife. I understand what it’s like to stand at a crossroads, unsure which path will cost more: staying or leaving. I also know what it means to finally find a way through, not by escaping the maze, but by learning to walk it with awareness.
“I didn’t create Mentoring Through The Maze to fix men. I created it to remind them they were never lost — only finding their way back to centre.”
That’s where mentoring for men truly begins — not in crisis, and not in confidence, but in the middle ground where survival has ceased to be enough, and something deeper starts calling you home.
“You can’t perform your way out of pain. You can only face it, piece by piece.”
The Weight Men Carry and Why Mentoring Helps
I grew up believing that endurance equated to strength. Keep moving. Keep serving. Don’t let the cracks show. My father shaped and disciplined this idea of what it meant to be a man.
I always thought it strange that my father never had any close friends or friends he could relax with. However, as I modelled his masculinity, I realised over time that kind of strength distances us from our partners, our children, and from ourselves. We lose contact with ourselves and our emotions.
There’s a word psychologists use for this pattern — alexithymia, the difficulty men have identifying and expressing what they feel. For men like my father and me, emotion was never forbidden outright; it was just trained out of us. We learned to convert sadness into silence, and fear into focus, until composure looked like competence and connection began to feel unsafe. The cost is loneliness, the loneliness I saw in my father.
Why do so many men wait until something finally gives way?
Because we’re taught that holding it together is a sign of strength, we keep pushing, keep managing, keep promising ourselves that we’ll rest once things settle down. But they rarely do. For many men, it’s only when the structures of control begin to crack — a relationship ending, a health scare, the quiet weight of exhaustion — that we realise the actual cost of silence.
We don’t call it collapse; we call it coping. Yet beneath that coping lies grief — the grief of not being truly known, even in a life that appears intact.
“The men I meet aren’t broken. They’re buried.”
Where Mentoring Meets Real Life
When men finally reach out, they often find two paths. Therapy looks back to heal what happened. Performance coaching focuses on achieving results. But there’s a middle ground — the space between crisis and purpose — where you’re no longer falling apart but not yet your best self. That’s where mentoring for men resides.
In my work as a men’s mentor, we don’t diagnose or hype. We slow down enough to tell the truth and rebuild a centre that can carry weight. Therapy heals the wound; mentoring helps you live with the scar.
Therapy asks where the pain began; mentoring asks who you choose to become now that you’ve faced it. For a deeper understanding of the pressures men face (and why the “just talk” message often misses), see Men’s and Boys’ Barriers to Health System Access.
“Mentoring isn’t about fixing you. It’s about helping you find your footing again.”
Is this just another version of coaching?
No. Coaching often enhances performance; mentoring helps you be honest about your life and build on solid ground. It’s a structured companionship: presence with a framework. We move at the pace of honesty, not urgency. If you want context for the shape grief can take in men, my article Navigating Male Grief provides a broader map of what you might be feeling and why it makes sense within a male life.
Mentoring -The work of Rebuilding
Rebuilding seldom starts with a breakthrough. It begins with the words, I don’t know who I am anymore. In my mentoring sessions, we focus on four movements — Reclaim, Rebuild, Reconnect, and Recreate — not as checklist steps but as guiding directions on an inner compass. Reclaiming is permitting yourself to name what you’ve been taught to hide away. Rebuilding is the gradual return of solid ground beneath your feet. Reconnecting is the realisation that strength was never about isolation — it’s about presence. Recreating is living forward from truth, not from role.
The first moves are quiet. You start noticing where your body tightens. You pay attention to the moment you reach for distraction. You choose a conversation you’ve been avoiding, and you stay. For a deeper understanding of how men lose contact with their inner life — and how to come back — read The Buried Life of Men. If you’re carrying the ache of the life you didn’t get to live, Grief of a Life Unlived names that quiet sorrow with the dignity it deserves.
“The work isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about remembering who you were before you had to be strong.”
What if I’ve already tried therapy, groups, books — and I’m still stuck?
Then you’ve realised that insight isn’t the same as integration. You can’t think your way back to yourself. Mentoring begins where effort ends — with presence, practice, and accountability that respects your pace.
When a Man Begins to Reconnect Again
Real change in a man’s life rarely announces itself. It doesn’t look like a breakthrough; it seems like the quiet return of self-respect. The moment he stops performing competence and starts living it. The way he chooses to stay in the room when things get uncomfortable. The way he steadies his voice instead of raising it. Change looks like that — ordinary on the surface, but everything beneath it is different.
And those small, steady shifts don’t stop with him. They ripple outward. The steadiness a man rebuilds in himself becomes the ground his family stands on, the tone his children inherit, the safety his partner begins to trust again.
- John Gottman’s work shows that children learn emotional safety from what we model at home.
- Sue Johnson’s research on attachment reminds us that relationships don’t need perfection — they need accessibility: Are you there for me?
- Terrence Real calls this relational recovery — the shift from performance to presence. When you steady yourself, the people you love stand on safer ground. The system changes because you do.
“When you steady yourself, the ground beneath others becomes safer too.”
How long does it take to rebuild and reconnect?
As long as it takes for the truth to become a habit. We move with the seasons, not in sprinting bursts. You set your own pace. The aim isn’t catharsis; it’s consistency — a life you can live in without armour.
The Mission Beneath Mentoring
People sometimes ask why I would choose a life so close to grief. I didn’t choose grief, but I decided to stop running from it. I’ve left a faith that once held me, a marriage I honoured, and an identity that kept me safe. I’ve known loneliness that felt endless. I’ve also known the relief of taking off armour that no longer fits. That’s why I mentor. Not to fix men, but to walk beside them while they remember who they are and rebuild what matters.
If you’re ready to take one steady step, begin with the 7-Day Inner Compass Guide. If you want a wider map of how grief moves in Australian men specifically, read your way into the pillar piece Male Grief in Australia on the site; it sits alongside Navigating Male Grief and anchors the larger conversation about culture, role, and permission.
“You don’t need to be fixed. You need to stand where you are and face what’s real.”
Recommended reading
If this essay has named something in you, follow it with three pieces that deepen the same thread.
The Buried Life of Men explores how we disappear behind duty and how to return to the centre.
Grief of a Life Unlived honours roads not taken and the ache we carry for them.
Reclaiming Life After Rejection is written for queer men rebuilding self-respect and a sense of belonging after shame.
Navigating Male Grief – A guide to understanding the grief we feel as men and ways to understand it.
Key Takeaways
What I want you to remember is simple.
- Men aren’t emotionless; we were trained out of our own language.
- Mentoring is the bridge back — a steady, structured companionship that helps you stand where you are, name what’s real, and live forward with integrity.
- Presence is the new measure of strength. When you steady yourself, you steady the people you love. That’s not self-help. That’s responsibility.
Mentoring Through The Maze offer structured mentoring for men navigating loss, identity change, and emotional reconnection.
FAQs
What kind of men do you work with?
Quiet, dependable men who feel disconnected from themselves — fathers, professionals, men who’ve left religion or marriages, men who can carry everything except their own inner life. They don’t want to be “fixed.” They want footing, clarity, and a way to live that doesn’t require hiding.
I’m not good at talking about feelings. Will this still work for me?
Yes. We start with what’s real, not what’s articulate. The work isn’t to become expressive; it’s to become honest. Language grows from presence. If you want a low-pressure beginning, sit with the 7-Day Inner Compass Guide for a week and notice what shifts.
Is this therapy by another name?
No. Therapy heals the wound; mentoring teaches you to live with the scar. Therapy explores the past; mentoring rebuilds the present so you can move with purpose. They work well together. If you’re in therapy, mentoring can become the place you translate insight into daily steadiness.
Where do I start?
Right where you are. Read The Buried Life of Men to understand why you feel so far from yourself. Then take the Inner Compass for seven days. If you still think that, yes, reach out. We’ll walk it one steady step at a time.
About the Author
David Kernohan
Founder – Mentoring Through the Maze: For Men Reclaiming Strength and Self
David Kernohan is a mentor, writer, and former mental-health nurse who helps men rebuild identity, clarity, and direction after loss or change. Drawing on more than three decades of experience working across mental health, legal, and community sectors, David founded Mentoring Through the Maze to provide men with a structured, non-clinical pathway to navigate grief, transition, and identity reconstruction.
His work bridges lived experience with reflective practice, guiding men to steady themselves, rebuild confidence, and reconnect with what matters most. Through one-to-one mentoring, group programs, and his reflective blog Musings from the Maze, David helps men reclaim strength and self without the pressure to perform or pretend.
References
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