Love Letters from Flora: INSIGHT IS NOT CHANGE - The Male Loneliness Epidemic, Depression & Embodied Evolution with Blake Rupert | 25
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Why do intelligent people stay stuck? It is something I am noticing in clients, friends, family and myself. We are insightful, curious, deep in self-inquiry, are capable of putting names and patterns to things, want to evolve, and then end up doing the same thing over and over again, staying stuck, and becoming more and more frustrated. Or as Blake Rupert puts it, "Somewhat we were made belief that we get unstuck as soon as we just find the answer. " This is one of the main research areas of the second guest on the show, my dear friend and registered counsellor, Blake Rupert. Blake is a registered clinic counsellor based in Vancouver, British Columbia, with a masters degree in counselling and over 15 years of experience across frontline and community mental health. His work spans the full spectrum of the human experience. His work spans from supporting people in psychiatric crisis, in Vancouver General Hospital, to helping founders, executives, physicians, and high performing professionals navigate the quieter struggles that success alone cannot solve. In our conversation, Blake was extra vulnerable. He shared deeply about his own experience with clinical depression and what helped him. Plus we dove deep into what it means to be a man, to become a father. As it often happens, I had a conversation and questions thought out, and then life took a different direction. I am so glad that we landed on talking about the male loneliness epidemic, where is it coming from? What's happening? How can we find a good path forward? Further, Blake draws from psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, meditation, and systems thinking in his work. And Blake helps people move beyond insight into lasting change. His approach is warm (can confirm), direct, practical, and deeply human, grounded in the belief that understanding ourselves is not enough if our patterns remain unchanged. He works primarily with thoughtful, high functioning adults, particularly men, who are ready to stop repeating the same dynamics. And begin living with greater presence, change and emotional honesty.
Please enjoy reading about this very personal, deeply insightful conversation on how gaining insight feels satisfying. But then comes the next, big ask, which might bring up a lot of discomfort: taking action. And transformation requires action. Understanding is just the beginning.
THE STORY
Blake and I have known each other for 7 years. We were housemates, we danced together, we laughed together, we cried together. We've been on adventures together. One particularly memorable one where his now wife, him and myself, they took me out for a secret hidden birthday hike. It was COVID. You were not allowed to hike. But we snuck out, and hiked up to this boulder overlooking the ocean, where they magically made vegan chocolate cake appear. And me setting up this tent with a broken pole, rolling around in it and getting kind of stuck, which led to hysterical laughter. This is just one of so many precious moments together, and we've also witnessed each other's growth and growing pains of deep depression, deep pain, but also massive celebration. Additionally, I blame Blake and his wife for me still being in Canada. They were both instrumental in encouraging me and keeping me accountable to apply for permanent residency and keep going through this entire lengthy process.
This conversation we had was also my first time to hear Blake share so honestly about his personal experience with recurring major depression. The level of understanding and insight he has gained over the years is respectable. His journey of self-inquiry is so inspiring, and he really came out of a very sombre, depressing, heavy place he started experiencing as a teenager. My heart hurt hearing him share about his experience. I felt deeply touched and moved by the loneliness and desperation, the sense of failure, misunderstanding, and wanting to not live (I can relate). Blake grew up in the stunning rain forest of North Vancouver, Canada. He thinks "A defining element of who I am came from over that period of time in my adolescence into teenagehood, developing some mental illness. And I know it's quite fashionable these days to trot out diagnosis and claims to victimhood, but this was just an essential part of my day-to-day experience, this sort of chronic major depression. And so a lot of my life has been trying to figure out, I think of it almost like an injury, like having twisted an ankle or something, why does this hurt and what can I do to make it better. So since a young age I was trying to figure out that. I also knew that I loved working with other people when I was in literally kindergarten and grade one. All my report cards said 'Blake is really good at school work but he needs to stay in his chair and not go help other people figure it out'. So that's always been a calling- to figure out what's going on for me internally. How do I ease pain, promote strength, but then also how to help people with what they're going through as well."
Having witnessed Blake's path over the years, I always found him deeply inspiring. He got a degree in psychology and philosophy, and later completed a Master's in Counselling and spent over fifteen years working across the full spectrum of mental health, from Vancouver General Hospital's complex psychiatric unit to counselling students at UBC. Alongside Western psychology, he immersed himself in Indigenous teachings here in British Columbia, discovering that both traditions point toward the same human truths through different languages. He is an excellent teacher when it comes to anything nature related, song and the human experience. Some more things we have in common is not only our hunger for adventure in nature, but also how our purpose truly was born out of the transformation of our individual deepest pain. I see his entire existence deeply rooted in nature, relationship, and genuine curiosity about what helps people come fully alive.
When I asked Blake what gave him the courage to speak honestly about his depression and ask for help, his answer moved me to the core: "It wasn't courage. It was desperation." As a teenager, recurring depression became so unbearable that he began contemplating suicide. And yet, even in that darkness, a tiny spark remained. He realized what he wanted was something different- the suffering to end, not his life. That single realization became enough to keep going. I am so amazed how, as a teenager, he had the capacity to start this experiment, betting on his own life. He never stopped asking himself the question, What actually helps? What changes the pattern? He early understood, encouraged by a Harvard study, that meaningful relationships are one of the strongest predictors of wellbeing, often even more powerful than wealth, exercise, or genetics. At some point, he embodied what many say: healing was never meant to happen alone. He is also an outspoken advocate for vigorous exercise, and a very athletic human himself.
THE PATTERN
Blake has lived with recurring major depression since he was around eleven years old. Every year, almost like clockwork, another depressive episode would arrive. Instead of accepting it as inevitable, he became deeply curious. Year after year, he began asking different questions: What contributes to this? What makes it worse? What actually helps? Drawing from both research and lived experience, he slowly started reverse engineering his own healing. Over time, he discovered more and more pieces of the puzzle which helped him personally. He did not reinvent the wheel: sleep, movement, less substance use, honesty, relationships, nature, breathing, transparency. And through this experiment he built a steadily growing capacity to meet life differently. Healing is so often sold as one major breakthrough, or a miracle cure. Blake's lived experience, which I deeply relate to, is a good reminder that it can also be the accumulation of a thousand small experiments, carried out with curiosity and determination.
For people with strong minds and powerful intellect (looking at myself here), this is for you. We begin to hide behind explanations and self-analysis, which is just another way of putting up walls, hiding behind armour. Blake described hiding not as a side effect of depression, but as one of its defining features. Shame convinces us that we're broken, burdensome, or too much, pushing us further into isolation, exactly where suffering grows strongest. One of the most powerful shifts in his own healing came through choosing transparency instead. Rather than hiding his struggles from friends, family, or employers, he began speaking about them with honesty and without apology. He was suprised to find people moving closer, loving him more, as there was more of him to love. He really focused on intentionally building relationships over the years, which I can confirm, he excels at- he is one of the best community builders I had the pleasure to meet so far. He learned how asking for support, and reducing shame through openness, shortened his depressive episodes and made them less consuming. Healing, once again, happened in connection. This is something I am still learning so deeply myself. When I am struggling, my initial response is to hide, especially from my family. Slowly, over time, I am learning to show myself in my deepest distress.
Blake made this interesting distinction that stayed with me long after we stopped recording. He spoke about the tension between what he calls the thinking self and the doing self. The glorified thinking self analyzes, plans, explains and tries to solve life from the mind. The doing self is the embodied one. It's the part that emerges while making love, dancing, skiing, cooking, creating, or fully immersed in the present moment. Each self has their place, and healing is learning when to invite each one to lead. The thinking self offers understanding. The embodied self creates change. They're two expressions of the same whole.
Another alarming observation: Many men have remarkably few meaningful friendships. We will dive deeper into this in the SOCIETAL REFLECTIONS below.
THE INVITATION
The question is: What action are you avoiding because thinking feels safer? What conversation have you delayed? What connection have you not initiated? What breath have you not taken? Where are you avoiding to show yourself, to connect, to let the ones around you in on what's truly happening for you?
SOCIETAL REFLECTIONS
I had not prepared any questions in this field, but we followed the natural way of out conversation and landed on what many are now calling the male loneliness epidemic. Something I often get asked about. Blake shared what he witnessed while counselling students at UBC, especially the generation whose teenage years were shaped by COVID. So many young men missed the years where friendships, conflict, intimacy, and belonging are usually practiced. Hearing that, my heart tightened.
What struck me most was how few meaningful relationships many men actually have. This is something I definitely observe in most of my clients, too, through all age groups. Blake told me that many of the men he worked with could name only one to three close people in their lives. And even then, the question remains: what kind of friendships are these? Are they playing video games together? Watching sports? Drinking beer and smoking weed? Or are they talking about grief, love, sex, longing, purpose, death? Are they experiencing real life together? There is a world of difference between having people around you and truly being known.
One of the longest-running Harvard studies found that the quality of our relationships predicts health, happiness and longevity more than wealth, genetics or career success. Chronic loneliness has even been compared to smoking in its impact on long-term health. We continue to underestimate how profoundly relationship shapes our nervous systems, our resilience and our capacity to feel alive.
So many men simply were never taught how to build those kinds of true relationships. They were taught to perform, to achieve, to solve problems, to rely on action instead of connection. To be the strong one, not the vulnerable one. All while quietly starving for genuine human connection. While many girls are encouraged to develop empathy and relational awareness, boys are so often rewarded for accomplishment, independence, and self-reliance. The result is capable men who can lead companies, close deals, and fix almost anything, yet quietly wonder how to ask another man, "How are you, really?" Let alone expressing how they really are. Offering one of the most radical invitations of our time: remembering how to belong together, to ask, to invite, to dare to be awkward. That's real strength.
What I also loved in Blake's story was how ordinary healing became. It was not easy, surely not. But he also didn't discover some secret method. He stacked simple things together over years: sleep, movement, less substance use, honesty, relationships, nature, breathing, transparency. Just profoundly human, maybe not us glamorous or viral as the internet wants us to believe. Perhaps that's why breathing feels almost too simple. Who actually taught us how to breathe? Sure, we're breathing all the time, day in, day out, during the night. I am talking about breathing fully. Consciously. Deeply enough for the nervous system to receive the message that we are safe.
Blake shared something I absolutely loved for the skeptics among us: heart rate variability (HRV). Science now allows us to measure (e.g. with your own watch!!!) what many contemplative traditions have known for centuries. Conscious breathing changes the nervous system in measurable ways. Presence is not only a spiritual practice, it's biological, and learnable.
And finally, perhaps the most hopeful reflection of all. Friendship is also a practice.
Blake spoke about different kinds of friendships: proximity, shared interests, shared values, shared purpose. Once we understand what we're actually longing for, we can intentionally place ourselves where those relationships become possible. And you might have heard this as dating advice, it's true: Go where your curiosity already lives. Join the running club. Take the pottery class. Volunteer. Pick blackberries. Talk to the stranger. As Blake put it so beautifully, people want to be friends with people who are friendly. Connection rarely begins with brilliance. It will perhaps be awkward. And one of Blake's internationally tested ice breakers is so simple it almost hurts: "Hi. I'd like to introduce myself."
Try it out. Let us know how it goes.
Work with Blake: https://blakerupert.com/
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