What are the gaps and how can we foster a better understanding between genders after a traumatic loss? Why is it harder for men to open up and how can we support our men? In this panel webinar, we focused on the challenges men face in expressing themselves and building deeper connections and looked at how to communicate and empower men open up and share their true selves.

The panelists shared their expertise on the following key points:

1. Communication Between Genders: We talked about the differences in communication styles between women and men and how it impacts understanding and expression.
2. Drugs and Alcohol: Examine the impact of substance use on men’s ability to open up emotionally.
3. Vulnerability and Fear: Discuss the perception that men have regarding vulnerability
4. Protectors, Providers and Fixers: Understand the societal expectations that label men as protectors and providers, influencing their reluctance to appear weak.
5. Intimacy and Sex After Loss: This can be very divisive as couples don’t understand where the other partner is coming from
6. Wearing a Mask, Feel to Heal: Delved into the concept of men wearing emotional masks and the importance of breaking free to facilitate healing.

AnneMoss Rogers is a mental health and suicide education expert, professional speaker, trainer, and consultant. After her 20-year-old son, Charles died by suicide in 2015, Anne Moss focused her efforts on mental health, grief and suicide prevention.

Karla Helbert is a licensed professional counselor (LPC), internationally certified yoga therapist, (C-IAYT), registered yoga teacher (RYT), award-winning author, and bereaved mother. Counseling and supporting those living with traumatic grief and bereavement is her main focus of work. 

Tony Lynch is the founder of Memories of Us, LTD, an organization dedicated to connecting men with the necessary resources and holding space with other men in communities and around the world who have experienced loss and struggled to find strength and purpose in their healing and to help end the stigma that society has placed on our men.

Michael Overlie is the founder of Dogs and Men, an organization focused on serving both Dogs and Men by deepening the bond between the two and teaching them the skills they never acquired to become emotionally confident. These new relationship skills are then expanded upon, translated and transferred to the other relationships in the man’s life, creating more harmony and peace as a way of being.