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Episode Description:
The calmest man in the room often carries the most pressure.

In this 15-minute episode, Andy explores The I’m Fine Mask — the man who appears chill, easy-going, and low-maintenance, but is quietly carrying resentment, suppressed anger, and a growing sense of being stuck.

This isn’t about anger management or emotional outbursts.
It’s about what happens when a man survives by staying on the surface — and what it costs him at work, at home, and inside himself.

If you’ve ever thought, “Nothing’s wrong… but this can’t be it,” this episode is for you.

In This Episode:

• Why “I’m fine” isn’t a feeling — it’s a survival strategy
• How suppressed anger turns into quiet hostility and resentment
• Why so many dependable men feel unappreciated and stuck
• The hidden cost of being the “easy one”
• What actually needs to shift before pressure takes over

Who This Is For:
Men who:

• Appear calm but feel tense underneath
• Take on too much at work and resent it
• Feel emotionally flat or quietly irritated at home
• Avoid conflict and don’t “do anger”
• Sense something is building but don’t know what to do with it

Key Line:
“You don’t have a strategy for emotion. You only have endurance.”

Series:
This episode is part of The Masks of Adam — short reflections on the survival identities men adopt, and what it takes to move beyond them.

👉 Join the waitlist for The 9 Masks of Adam
A 9-week journey to identify the mask running your life — and remove it so you can finally lead as the man you were meant to be.
Email: andy@andynathan.co.uk

Want to Drop the Masks?
The 9 Masks of Adam begins in February 2026.
If you want to stop letting old survival strategies run your life and start leading from who you truly are, this is for you.

Connect with Andy
Instagram: @andyjnathan / @themanprogram
Website: andynathan.co.uk

Send us a text

Most men haven’t lost their strength - they’ve just forgotten the fire inside them.
The fire that made them handle hard things without resentment.
The fire that made them feel alive, grounded, and capable.

This episode is about remembering that fire…
And becoming the man who can do what he needs to do without resenting responsibility.

You’ll also hear about The 9 Masks of Adam, a 9-week journey to identify the mask running your life and remove it so you can finally lead as the man you were meant to be.

In this episode, Andy explores why so many high-functioning men feel resentful, tired, or emotionally disconnected - even when their lives “look fine” from the outside.

It isn’t about chores.
It isn’t about motivation.
It’s about the boy inside you still running parts of your adult life…

And the Unfathered Man Mask that shows up when that boy is never replaced by a deeper, internal father.

You’ll learn:

• Why the inner boy resists responsibility and seeks fairness
• Why men feel unseen or unappreciated for “doing the right things”
• What it means to live a life of meaning (and why meaning depends on the why, not the task)
• How Marcus Aurelius used inner discipline to rise above comfort
• The difference between aggression and true inner fire
• Why multiple truths inside you can be valid at the same time
• The warrior: the part of you that acts regardless of feeling
• The internal father: the calm, grounded, unshakeable inner guide
• The unfathered man mask: how men avoid responsibility, purpose, commitment, and themselves
• How to break the mask and grow into the man beneath it
• The Father’s Ledger: a simple nightly practice to stay accountable to the man you’re becoming

If you’ve been feeling stuck, resentful, overwhelmed, or like you’re capable of far more than you’re currently showing… you haven’t lost anything.
You’ve simply forgotten the fire you had - and it’s time to remember it.

👉 Join the waitlist for The 9 Masks of Adam
A 9-week journey to identify the mask running your life - and remove it so you can finally lead as the man you were meant to be.
Email: andy@andynathan.co.uk with the subject line: Masks Waitlist

Want to Drop the Masks?
The 9 Masks of Adam begins in January inside The Man Program.
If you want to stop letting old survival strategies run your life and start leading from who you truly are, this is for you.

Connect with Andy
Instagram: @andyjnathan / @themanprogram
Website: andynathan.co.uk

Send us a text

In this episode, Andy shares a raw and revealing personal story that exposes one of the biggest problems men face today: the emotional freeze response.

After opening up about a traumatic experience to someone close to him, Andy was met with three days of silence. When the reply finally came, it echoed something he’s heard from countless men:

This episode breaks down why even strong, disciplined, high-performing men freeze emotionally — and how this freeze response is not fear, not weakness, but an uninitiated nervous system.

Andy explores:

• the difference between physical and emotional strength,
• why coaches and leaders often fail when emotion enters the room,
• the absence of male initiation in modern culture,
• and how three of the 9 Masks of Adam — The Independent One, The I’m Fine Mask, and The Perfectionist — collapse into silence when life gets real.

If you’ve ever frozen when someone needed you…
or someone froze when you needed them…
this episode will hit home.

Key Takeaways

• Freeze isn’t fear — it’s immobilisation.
  It’s the nervous system shutting down because it has no map for emotional reality.
• Physical strength doesn’t prepare men for emotional pain.
  You can be trained to fight, but still collapse when faced with grief, conflict, or truth.
• Initiation creates emotional adulthood.
  And as Robert Bly said, men are initiated either by elders… or by life breaking them open.
• The 9 Masks of Adam block emotional presence.
  Especially The Independent One, The I’m Fine Mask, and The Perfectionist — all three collapse into freeze.
• The boy hides. The man stays.
  Freeze shows which one is running your nervous system.

Timestamps

00:00 — Why this episode matters now
01:22 — The story: sharing trauma and receiving silence
04:45 — “I overthought it and avoided it” — the male condition
06:02 — Freeze is immobilisation, not fear
07:50 — The trained fighter who collapses emotionally
09:10 — When coaches and leaders freeze — and why it breaks trust
11:30 — Business capability vs emotional capability
13:14 — Robert Bly on the two paths to initiation
15:00 — Why most men never got emotional initiation
16:42 — Freeze as the nervous system saying “I wasn’t built for this moment”
17:30 — The Independent One, The I’m Fine Mask & The Perfectionist
20:10 — Boy psychology vs man psychology
22:03 — Emotional adulthood requires initiation, not toughness
23:30 — The invitation: where have YOU frozen?
24:20 — Teaser: The 9 Masks of Adam live in January

Resources / Links

👉 Join the waitlist for The 9 Masks of Adam — live in January

Want to Drop the Masks?

In January we begin The 9 Masks That Men Wear inside The Man Program.
If you want to stop letting old survival strategies run your life and start leading from who you truly are, this is for you.

Email me to get on the waitlist: andy@andynathan.co.uk

Connect with me

Instagram: @andyjnathan/ @themanprogram
Website: andynathan.co.uk /