‘We had something powerful’: men’s mental health the focus of Shed Talk

Shed Talk Men’s Night focuses on men’s mental health in a group setting, exploring such sensitive issues as divorce, business failure and suicide.

Shed Talk Men’s Night is something that started in Kevin Halliday’s back yard shed with friends and neighbours sharing stories about what’s happening in their lives.

Halliday found that men opened up about their mental health in that close-knit environment and it sparked an idea.

“We started opening up and talking about things we didn’t know we needed to say and then from that it came to suicide and then all of a sudden, divorce and then businesses blowing up and ‘I’m going this is amazing,’” he said.

“Why are we discussing stuff like that - the point of the matter was everyone started to communicate and that’s when I realized we had something powerful.”

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What started in his shed has now turned into a podcast and an in-person gathering every second Wednesday of the month at Halliday’s Shed Talk studio in an industrial park in southeast Calgary.

“I invited entrepreneurs (at first) and the idea was with them is that they were able to open up a business, but a lot of them don’t open them about their families or their personal life,” said Halliday, who is an entrepreneur himself.

“I started bringing entrepreneurs in and then all of a sudden guess what - they started to talk about family, friends, suicide, businesses collapsing.”

The evening sessions are intimate - with six to eight participants - and Halliday partnered with Delaine Bennett, a registered social worker who attends each meeting.

“When people are talking about suicide or deeper, darker feelings, it’s really quite negligent to start bringing up some of that stuff without having some safety pieces in place,” she said.

“So having somebody who is really trained in trauma and being able to support and help people when they’re in those spaces or be able to help them follow up or get them lined up with other clinics, or mental health support is really essential.”

Bennett says many men don’t have a safe space or network to share their feeling with, without being judged.

“Hard working men who have to really compartmentalize and push those feelings and emotions away because they have a job to get done and there is no stopping until it’s done - those kind of rigid thinking men really struggle to be in touch with their bodies,” she said.

Bennett says many participants comment that they didn’t know they needed this kind of conversation to help them through difficult situations they’ve shared.

She says one outgoing man who spends his days networking feels alone in life.

“He’s very well known and he is going around talking to people and meeting different people every day,” she said.

“But (he) never has a conversation like this, this man in particular knows everybody in Calgary but he feels so lonely.”

Halliday says men always feel they’re able to share in this Shed Talk environment that he’s created as a safe space. He says he’s not there to force someone into therapy.

“We’re there to show you how experiences share and craft greatness,” he said.

“When you change one man’s life that walks through this door and all of a sudden he says, you know what, thank you - because all we need is to be shoulder to shoulder and ask a better question and just listen.”

Learn more about Shed Talk online.