A local men’s support group that helps people deal with adversity is so popular it is expanding this year to include a women’s branch.
The Men’s Well (TMW), founded by Mark Beaton, “specifically deals with helping men manage their emotions and reactions in places of adversity which could be separation/divorce, estrangement from family, loneliness, isolation and low self-esteem”.
The group meets every second, fourth and fifth Tuesday of the month at the Northern Illawarra Uniting Church at 191 Princes Highway, Bulli.
“I charge no fee for what I do, it is not a religious group, it is a group for anyone to learn how to be 'The best versions of you',” Mark says, referring to TMW’s vision statement.
“The men who come feel very comfortable and safe within this group based on the confidentiality that governs the meeting.”
Source of The Men's Well
Mark, a retired ordained minister with The Uniting Church in Australia, says TMW has grown since its first face-to-face meeting in April 2024 and now has about 20 men attending at different times. It also has about 800 followers on Facebook and a YouTube page with 18 self-made help videos.
One-on-one sessions are available for people “who want something a bit more private”.
Mark first had the idea for The Men’s Well about two years ago.
“I was counselling a few guys just about marriage break-up – this was back maybe two years ago – and I seemed to be having some success in how they were responding, and I just thought to myself, it might be a good idea if I brought these guys together in a group.
“It ended up being about five of them. So I did that maybe a year and a half ago. And it really worked and I sort of facilitated it. I understood that I had wisdom around this from a few different areas, life experiences as well, and I just had a sense of being able to pin down their emotions and have them have a look at it and provide tools for them, which I sort of created to help them start to have a better relationship with themselves.
“And then I stopped it for a while because I moved churches and I retired. And when I went to another church, my wife said to me: ‘You really have a calling to do this work with the men's group’.
“So I started again, this time at the Northern Illawarra Uniting Church."
How the group works
“It's evolved a bit from when I started," Mary says, "because it was really about men who were separated, divorced, estranged from their kids, going through the court system and bereaved. But I realised after a while that it was really about how they dealt with those issues, but emotionally, not what the issue was.
“So it changed around now to looking at giving them tools to be able to handle their emotions, their reactions, to be able to realistically deal with any adversity in life.”
The group’s approach involves an 11-step charter “about advice, about what's important”, Mark says.
“And that's related to the relationship they have with themselves.
“It just applies to people, not necessarily to men, it’s just about how to work through a relationship – and the first relationship that you've got to address is the one with yourself.
“So it's more about how an individual can use the tools to help themselves. And it's not gender specific.”
Inspired to support others
Mark says witnessing the positive progress of TMW participants is what drives him.
“The enjoyment for me is to sit and watch some of these people improve in nine months, 10 months now, and really start to have a relationship with themselves, like a time where they can still have the self-loathing and the self-worth thoughts, but they have tools now to manage so they don't go as low and they come back quicker.
“I don't feel like I can take responsibility for that; I’ve been a cog in the wheel that has made them at least draw attention to it.
“It is all for others.
"There's a famous Zig Ziglar [a motivational author] saying, which I've attached to the charter, and that is: You can have everything in life you want if you just help other people in the world get what they want.”
Local organisations, such as Northern Illawarra Uniting Church, and businesses, such as Purpose Physio and Wiseman Park Bowling Club, have contributed to the “financial upkeep” of TMW, Mark says. TMW is being registered with NSW Fair Trading and the group now has a governing committee.
For more details, contact Mark on 0430 209 195, mark.beaton2@gmail.com or visit The Men’s Well Facebook page.
