Every November, men across the world grow moustaches for a cause — a fuzzy symbol of awareness for men’s health. Behind the humour, though, lies a sobering truth: men are still dying by suicide at alarming rates.
Despite campaigns, medications, and well-intentioned programs, the numbers haven’t moved much. It’s not for lack of care or compassion — it’s because we’ve been looking in the wrong direction.
We’ve been trying to fix the smoke instead of finding the fire.
“Watch: Key insights on men’s mental health and suicide”
The Limits of the Outside-In Approach
Mainstream mental health treatment tends to focus on what’s visible — behaviour, mood, and diagnosis. It’s a model that sees mental distress as something caused by external events: trauma, stress, loss, failure.
But men, in particular, are taught to handle those externals on their own. “Man up.” “Shake it off.” “Keep busy.”
It works — until it doesn’t.
What if the real cause of distress isn’t what happens to us, but how our minds are working within us at that moment?
That’s where we need to look further upstream.
A Simpler Truth Beneath the Noise
The Three Principles understanding — Mind, Consciousness, and Thought — points us back to something we’ve all forgotten: the mind’s natural design is healthy, resilient, and wise.
- Mind is the intelligence behind life — the quiet, self-correcting force that keeps us breathing, healing, and finding balance.
- Consciousness gives us the gift of awareness — to feel, to see, to experience life in real time.
- Thought is the creative energy shaping our moment-to-moment reality.
When we misunderstand this system, we live as if the world is pressing down on us. But in truth, we are always experiencing our thinking, not our circumstances.
That single shift — from outside-in to inside-out — changes everything.
Why This Matters for Suicide Prevention
When someone feels suicidal, it’s easy to believe there’s no way out. The pain feels absolute, the mind convincing, the world small.
But the mind isn’t broken — it’s doing what minds do: creating experience through thought. When that’s understood, even slightly, it creates space.
Space for a new thought.
Space for hope.
Space to survive another minute, another hour, another day.
This isn’t theory — it’s lived experience. Many men I’ve coached have discovered that the darkest thoughts can pass, just as a storm does, when we stop trying to fight the weather.
Understanding how the system works doesn’t remove pain, but it changes our relationship to it. We stop treating it as a permanent identity and start seeing it as temporary weather.
Real Strength Isn’t Silence — It’s Understanding
We’ve long mistaken silence for strength. But strength isn’t in holding it together — it’s in seeing clearly how your mind works.
When men understand that they are feeling their thinking, not their circumstances, they begin to trust something deeper. They rediscover a steady core that never left them — the unbroken part beneath the noise.
That understanding saves lives.
“Watch: A fresh perspective on depression.”
A Call to Move Beyond Awareness
Movember began with moustaches. Maybe the next evolution is understanding.
Let’s move beyond awareness to the source of mental health — the truth that peace, clarity, and resilience aren’t things to be earned; they’re part of who we already are.
When men remember that, the world changes — one thought, one conversation, one life at a time.
With love,
Rick Ruppenthal
Transformative Coach | Consultant | Mental Health Educator
Founder, Unbroken Hero Project
Helping men and first responders rediscover the strength that was never lost.
Rick Ruppenthal | COACHING 