Command
Get your hands back on the wheel.
Not control over what’s happening. Control over what’s still yours: the questions you ask, the choices you make, your say in what comes next.
Writing, tools and one-to-one mentoring
For men who are still holding it together in public.
The “I’m fine” that comes out before you’ve thought about it. The forced smile in the meeting, the 10 minutes of quiet in the car before you go back inside. Nobody would guess what it’s taking. You don’t have to explain any of it here. Pull up a chair.
I can’t promise you the storm passes. What I can show you is how to build the strength that stops it running you.
No account or email needed.
Command / Calm / Home
Three ways in
Pick a door. Any door.
Maybe it happened yesterday. Maybe it’s been months. Maybe everyone else thinks it’s over, and you’re the only one who knows it isn’t. Wherever you are in it, there’s a way in.
You don’t have to call it a crisis to recognise that something is taking more out of you than it used to.
Intra Fortis
The kind of inner-strength you build for the storm.
Intra Fortis is Latin for strong within. It isn’t a programme I designed at a desk. It’s what I’ve had to build, and keep rebuilding, from inside the storm. Not the strength that waits for good news. The kind that stops the storm running you.
Calm
Stop fighting the part that was never going to move.
Some things won’t shift however hard you push. Put that fight down, and your strength goes where it can actually make a difference. Count what getting through has cost you, too.
Home
Make it somewhere you can live, not hide.
A place inside where you can hear yourself again, and a few people you can let in without putting on a show. One is enough.
Not a ladder to climb. Three things that, on a good day, I manage to hold at once.
Find your starting point: take the free check-in
A note from Christian
I didn’t choose this subject. It chose me.
I was forty when cancer interrupted the life I thought I was living. That was 2013. It has come back more than once since. I’m not through it, and I’ve stopped pretending I ever will be. Thirteen years (and counting) that have asked more of me than I knew how to give.
Along the way it took a career or two, a fair amount of money and a marriage. Collateral damage, as I’ve come to call it.
So I’m not writing this from the shore. I’m still out in the storm, close enough to shout back what’s helped. Some of it I learned the hard way. Most of it I’m still practising.
Christian
Read the longer version One-to-one mentoring
You don’t have to do this on your own. You just think you do.
Three months. Built around you.
You don’t need to arrive with an explanation or a plan. “I’m not sure why I’m here” is a perfectly good opening line. We start with what’s happening, what’s still in your control, and where to put your weight first.
I won’t tell you it’ll be fine. I’ll help you work out what to do while it isn’t.
- An honest look at where you are.A first session to see the whole picture, and a plan built from it.
- Twelve weeks of working through it.Weekly 70-minute calls. The plan bends when life does.
- Someone on the other end.WhatsApp, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm UK time. I’ll reply in those hours.
A conversation about what you need and whether working together feels right. Pricing will be discussed on the call. No obligation.
Mentoring isn’t therapy, medical treatment or an emergency service.
Try this now
What did today
actually ask of you?
There was a day when making dinner for my family took almost everything I had. Nobody clapped. I didn’t either.
Name one thing you did today that nobody clapped for.
Write it down, and next to it, what made it hard. You don’t have to turn it into a lesson. Just give it a place in your account of the day.
Read the essay this came from
Free, private check-in
How are you,
really?
Not the version you give people.
Nineteen statements about the last few weeks. Not your best day, not your worst.
At the end, you’ll receive a reflection letter shaped by your answers. Not a score. Not a diagnosis. A letter, one small thing to try, and something to read.
Start the check-inNo account, no email, no time limit. Your answers stay in this open page. They aren’t sent to me or saved by the check-in. Refreshing or closing the page clears them.
How the check-in worksFrom The Other Room
Words for what you’re carrying.
I write three times a week in The Other Room, my Substack. Some of it is what happened. Some of it is what I’ve learned to do about it. None of it pretends the storm has passed.
Start here
01 / Recognising your effort
You survived things no one clapped for
On the days that take everything and leave nothing to show for it.
Read the essay 02 / An introduction to Intra FortisFor the men who are still holding it together in public
Where this started, and the practices I go back to when it gets hard.
Read the essay 03 / Finding wordsBefore Fear Has a Name
On naming the thing you’ve been carrying, and what shifts when you do.
Read the essayLatest essays from The Other Room
Here for someone else
You can’t fix it for him. You can leave the door open.
If you ask, he’ll probably say he’s fine. I know. When I was asked, “yeahitsfine” came out as one word. Pushing rarely gets past it. Leaving something where he can find it sometimes does.
You don’t need to work out what’s wrong, or take the check-in for him. Send him an essay with something like:
“This made me think of you. No need to reply. I’m here if you want to talk.”
Then let him choose what to do with it, and when.
An essay to send himThe questions men don’t usually ask out loud.
Do I need to be in a crisis?
No. It might be happening now, it might have happened years ago, or life might look normal while it’s still taking more than it should. If any of this felt familiar, that’s enough.
Is this only for men with cancer?
No. Cancer is my storm. Yours might be a business that went under, a marriage that ended, a diagnosis, a loss nobody talks about. The work is the same: what you can still steer, what you need to stop fighting, and somewhere to come back to.
Is this therapy?
No. I’m not a therapist or a doctor, and this isn’t treatment or diagnosis. It’s what I’ve learned from inside it, with practical tools and mentoring. If you need clinical support, please get it. This can work next to it.
Are you going to try to sell me something?
Some essays and the check-in are free. Paid subscription prices are on this page; mentoring pricing is discussed on the call. The first call is free, and there’s no pitch at the end of it.
What happens on the first call?
Thirty minutes, free. We talk about what’s happening and whether working together makes sense. You don’t need a polished account of your life. Most of us don’t have one.
Choose a time on Calendly ↗Do you see my check-in answers?
No. They stay in your browser and disappear when you close the page. Booking a call or subscribing doesn’t send them to me.
You don’t have to work out the whole way forward today.
Find out about mentoringNeed support sooner?
If you are in immediate danger or cannot stay safe, contact your local emergency service now. If you can, reach someone you trust. You do not need to complete this check-in first.
Find support in your country ↗. Choose your country on that service; we do not infer your location. For harm or threats from someone else, seek specialist support in a way that is safe for you.
This page is not monitored. Please do not wait for Christian to read a result.