Baby Steps: Integrate Your Shadow
February 7, 2026My algorithms have been overwhelmed lately - as has everyone’s - with the horrific news coming from the Epstein files. I do not need to elaborate on the darkness of the abyss that has appeared underneath us, this sinkhole that has appeared in the palm of everyone’s hands. Probably the most uniting force across all spectrums of human thought is this: The actions depicted in those files are pure evil, and consequences must be had.
I have been very careful with my exposure to the files themselves, for fear that I may lose myself in the anger and horror - and I’m seeing people both in my personal life and online via social media undergo what I would describe as “spontaneous mental combustion”. They’ve been staring too long into the abyss and have lost their minds - we don’t see the hours they’ve put into consuming the evil, we’re only see the explosion.
Family members blasting their family in group texts. People jumping on social media to howl and scream. People lashing out at strangers.
But perhaps the one most surprising to me (and one of the more popular takes I’ve seen anecdotally) revolves around women’s anger towards men’s lack of emotional response to the files.
A very specific subset of women who are very loud online have determined that men are failing the test, because they appear to be apathetic to the great devouring nightmare that’s infected every digital device in the world.
Here are a couple examples:
View this post on Instagram (@words_of_women)
View this post on Instagram (@wolfwomxnenergy)
The amount of views, likes, and hateful comments towards men are staggering. I understand that the source of these positions are from pain and grief. But to lash out against men who aren’t processing this the way you’d like is an incredibly cringeworthy mistake and a fruitless effort. You simply do not understand men.
Insight into the male psyche: emotional flooding and War of the Worlds
One of the most straightforward depictions of what is going on in a man’s mind during times of crises can be found in Tom Cruise’s War of the Worlds. The movie is focused on the experiences of a father and his children as they experience massive alien invasion. (The specific scene I’m referencing can be found here.)
Eventually Ray (the main character/father) finds himself hiding in a basement with his daughter, having been invited in by another man named Harlan. It becomes clear very quickly that Ray and Harlan are not on the same page in how to handle the cataclysmic nightmare happening all around them. The longer Harlan watches the aliens from the basement windows, the faster he loses his mental fortitude. Panic starts taking over, and he finally gives in to full panic, screaming “NOT MY BLOOD” and digging a tunnel as fast as he can.
Ray sees the same horror, and feels the same fear, but far magnified as he also fears for the life of his daughter. He hides his emotion at first from his daughter, and tries to reason with Harlan.
Once he realizes Harlan cannot be calmed, or reasoned with, the emotion starts draining from him, and he asks Harlan a simple question.
“Do you understand what I’m going to have to do?”
He dares to try to yell at him a final time to wake him up, but when Harlan strikes him, he quietly returns to his daughter, blindfolds her and tells her to cover her ears, and then silently returns to the dug out room and kills Harlan.
What we just witnessed is a variation of the psychological phenomenon known as emotional flooding.
Emotional flooding in men refers to a, usually, involuntary, acute, and overwhelming physiological and emotional state, often occurring during conflict, where stress hormones (adrenaline and cortisol) surge, causing the "thinking" part of the brain (prefrontal cortex) to go "offline". While it can cause fight-or-flight reactions, it frequently manifests as emotional shutdown (or "stonewalling"), where men become silent, disengaged, and unresponsive to protect themselves from further, perceived danger or overwhelming emotional distress.
Ray’s mind went primal and his emotions shut down. He had one goal, to protect his daughter from the overwhelming threat that surrounded them. He became a “heartless” robot of logic, still guided by something buried deep within him but now unhindered by the fog of war brought on by uncontrolled emotions.
The logic - there is a threat, neutralize the threat. Kill the man, save my daughter. When the world is colorless and emotion is muted, things become very simple, and very brutal.
You can see the pain in Ray’s eyes as the flood of adrenaline and cortisol starts to abate, and higher level thinking and feeling start coming back. The cost of his actions comes due and it is a heavy toll. It is something that he didn’t believe he was capable of.
How we see this today
To the women of social media who are spitting hatred and frustration at men, I hope this gives you some insight into how the men in your life are processing these events. If you are constantly exploding in episodes of high emotion or continually forcing scenes or descriptions of systemic and pervasive horrors beyond our wildest imaginations onto them, you are telling your men that there is a threat on their doorstep and you are summoning the monster within.
Know the signs - when men say things like:
“There’s nothing I can do about that”
“I can’t look at that right now”
“What’s the point”
You might hear apathy but what you’re really seeing is a brain slowly losing its humanity to a primal defense mechanism. You are hearing the desperate reasonings from a Bruce Banner drowning in a sea of adrenaline triggered by evils far beyond our capacities to combat. When you hold his head under, pushing further and further for a response, do you know what will come out? Stop trying to summon the Hulk to fight a war of principalities.
If you need someone to cry with, to scream and shout and wail and break things - you need to find another woman to talk with. You need to understand that men process things different than women and allow them that process.
When the tide abates and your man can feel again is when you should start making your plans, and efforts, to help us all rid the world of evil.
Wait for the tide to abate, and your man can feel again, before you expect him to join you in making your plans and efforts to help rid the world of evil.
Anybody can become angry — that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.
-Aristotle
