The Day I Quit Being An Onion

What I’ve come to realize is that most men live like an onion…

Mad statement but in this article, I will explain what it means…

… and how understanding it will help you gain more respect from others, and increase your attractiveness to women.

To explain it properly, I’m going to bring you through my timeline of living like an onion.

Throughout this article, reflect on your life and see… are you living like an onion?

Be honest with yourself. Let’s get into it…

Early Years (Ages 3-11):

I grew up on a farm, so I had a lot of freedom and places to play with my brother and sister.

But it was also an environment of “old school” Irish rearing.

Which meant, discipline wasn’t dealt out in the lightest of forms.

More so in the shape of abuse & violence.

There wasn’t much room to be hurt, or feel pain at that matter.

If I did, I was told to “toughen up” and “get on with it”.

So I did, bottled things away, and thus created the first layer of Paul’s identity.

Adolescence (Ages 11-12):

My parents split up. It wasn’t exactly the most low-key separation.

Both had their interests to take care of and for me, I didn’t voice what was going on.

I was lonely, felt it was my fault, and that I had been abandoned.

But then again… I didn’t speak up about these feelings.

What did I do instead? I formed another layer.

I “toughened up” and “got on with it”.

Early Teen Years (Ages 13-16):

As I ventured into my teenage years…

The “tough act” continued, and it led me down a path of drinking, smoking joints, and missing school with the boys.

I’d often black out and be carried home.

One particularly low moment came at 15…

I drank too much and passed out in the bathroom of a local Eddie Rockets.

Videoed by an old friend of mine and passed out around the school….

It became one of the lowest moments of my teenage years.

I felt ashamed and embarrassed.

To the point that one day, I went home from school, and put a knife to my throat.

My mother opened the door from work and I ran to my room.

I quickly wiped the tears from my eyes and told myself again “toughen up and get on with it”.

Looking back, the incident was more so a cry for help.

Not sure if I ever would have gone through with it, but that’s how low my life had gotten.

By the end of the following summer, at the age of 16, I was in a new county and a new school.

I looked at it as an opportunity… “New school, new me”

So everything that had happened was suppressed, toughened up, and a new layer was formed.

Sex, Drugs, Drink & Partying (Ages 17-23):

I took my first yoke (ecstasy pill) at the age of 17 and it kickstarted my “rock & roll” age.

Pills at least 3-4 days of the week…
Coke most nights out…
Alcohol, again 3-4 days of the week…
Festivals, music events, and parties…
Sleeping 3-5 hours a night…
Wrote off two cars…
Almost lost an eye…
And had a near-death experience.

On top of that…

I was working a job that heavily demanding. No matter how bad I felt. I HAD to smile, be nice, and be highly professional.

Don’t get me wrong, I had some of the best times of my life during this time.

I met some great people, some of whom are still my closest friends today…

But the thing is, the drugs, drinking, partying, and even women were easier than being on my own and listening to the shit going on in my head.

So the mantra remained… “toughen up Paul, and get on with it”.

I can’t tell you how many layers I developed during these years.

The Breaking Point (Age 24)

By the time I was 24, I’d “toughened up” so many times that just like an onion, I’d gone past my “best before date”.

Usually, this happens to men, in their 40’s, when they have a mid-life crisis…

But fortunately for me, it was in my early twenties.

What started to happen was the initial layer from childhood began to rot.

See, my life began to slow down… partying, drinking, and experiences I used to for avoidance stopped.

The rot grew… to the point where I couldn’t hold it in.

I ended up having a complete mental breakdown.

Sitting on the stars in my sister’s house, I caved in a finally confessed what was going on inside me… how I’d felt all those years.

For the next seven days, anything said to me, triggered me, so I’d burst out crying.

It was as if I was experiencing 24 years of pain in that entire week

The Day I Quit Being An Onion:

As you can tell over the years, I’d built up layers of shit.

Constantly suppressing pain, anger, and hurt.

To change all that, I had to get to the root of it.

The layer that was rotten way internally.

So I got help, went to therapy, and began to peel back EVERYTHING.

For the past four years, I’ve been peeling and changing things…

But it was day, I said… “no more adding shitty layers to my life”.

I’ve been working on myself for the past four years. And it has been nothing but transformational.

Nowadays, instead of the onion life, it’s more so embodying the life stone”.

A mentor once said to me…

“You will only have one purpose in life but many missions”

If you think of stone… it has one purpose… stability.

But serves on many missions throughout its lifetime…

To build houses…
To build walls…
To make concrete…
For art sculptures…
For decorative purposes in the lawn…
Hold a door open from time to time…
Even in the ground, it brings stabilizes the ground around it.

…. the list goes on

No matter what it’s used for though, there will be some form of stability there.

On top of that, a stone has one layer to it…

It does exactly what it says on the tin… no hidden agenda.

Because of this switch, people have come to respect my boundaries, opinions, and beliefs.

And if they don’t… that’s fine too… I’m emotionally stable enough to not throw my toys out of the pram.

My Final Thoughts…

I know there is this societal expectation to remain stoic and unemotional only exacerbates the Onion Effect, making the process of reaching out for help and beginning the work of peeling back the layers even more daunting.

But if you want to change…

Then the first step towards change is acknowledging the layers and the impact they have on our lives.

This doesn’t mean you have to go deep into therapy…

Merely recognizing the layer is enough to change the behavior.

In Modern Mens Academy, I use a method called mind mirroring. 

This is a process that reflects your unconscious into your conscious awareness.

It’s not therapy. It’s a model for self-mastery.

Once you’ve discovered some of the layers that aren’t serving you, it’s just a matter of making slight tweaks to your behavior…

And taking corrective action with them.

Then what happens you start to create a singular hardened stable layer.

One that people respect, they know how to interact with you, they know what you put up with and what you don’t…

And women? You’re more attractive to them.

Women are hyper-aware of a guy who is hiding something.

They’re biologically given that gift as it’s how they protect themselves from dangerous situations.

So living like an onion, with a load of shit hidden beneath the surface that triggers you to the point where you shut down isn’t safe for them.

If you don’t believe me… just ask one.

Now if you’ve read this and you’ve recognised some layers that you’ve built up over the years but don’t serve you…

Then reach out to me, and let’s have a conversation.

I’ll show you mind-mirroring. This way you can start to change remove these layers and begin to become the man you aspire to be.

Let’s Have A Conversation ➡️ ➡️