The Man Crystals and the Stories That Helped His Sons Believe Anything is Possible
Aran Bray is the creator of The Take One Moment Method (TOM), a practical approach to human behaviour that focuses on the moment before action. His work helps people recognise patterns, interrupt automatic responses, and develop real self-direction.
For quite a few years, things kept growing out of my back. They weren't particularly attractive. They would grow beneath the skin, occasionally reaching something approaching the size of a golf ball, at which point I'd go to the doctor and have them cut out.
At least, that's what ‘actually’ happened. My sons were told something rather different. They were man crystals.
Apparently, the world occasionally needed my help
The man crystals began one summer when my boys were young. I had my shirt off, and one of them noticed the rather obvious lump protruding from my back.
I could have explained what it was. It was essentially a pocket beneath the skin that had filled with bodily fluid and would eventually need removing. Perfectly explainable. Not particularly exciting.
Instead, for reasons I still don't entirely understand, my mind disappeared into a film I'd seen years earlier called Starman.
I told them the truth. Well, a version of it. Every now and then, I explained, something happens somewhere in the world and a little extra help is required. When that happens, it's not uncommon for one of these crystals to start growing inside me.
Eventually, it gets big enough, I go to the doctor, they cut it out, and the crystal is taken away to wherever in the world it's needed.
They sew me back up. The world is helped. We carry on. Nothing particularly remarkable. Just a man crystal. My sons seemed perfectly satisfied with this explanation.
I probably should have thought this through
The problem with telling fanciful stories to small children is that adults tend to forget them. Children don't. I'd already discovered this at bedtime.
I desperately wanted to read to my boys when they were young, but reading aloud wasn't easy for me. It hadn't been since school. Even as an adult, the thought that I might be asked to read something aloud could trigger an extraordinary physical reaction.
I'd worry about stumbling over a word before I'd even reached it. I'd become hot. My palms would sweat. The anxiety would arrive before the sentence did.
It's strange what childhood fears can do when they're allowed to grow up with you. So, as my boys began wanting increasingly complicated bedtime stories, I found another way.
Sometimes I'd read. Sometimes I'd make the whole thing up. We'd choose a subject and disappear somewhere together. I'd create characters and ridiculous situations. Sometimes I'd ask them what should happen next, and we'd build the story between us.
It became one of my favourite parts of being their dad.
The only problem was that three nights later, they'd ask for the next chapter. I hadn't planned a next chapter. I could barely remember the first one. I'd start confidently enough until one of them would interrupt.
"No, Dad. That's not what happened." Then they'd patiently explain my own story back to me. The man crystals suffered the same fate. I'd accidentally created canon.
Children inherit strange things
I've always been incredibly proud to be a dad. Like most parents, I wanted my children to have more than I had. More opportunities. More freedom. More fun. An easier relationship with the world.
But there was something else I wanted for them too. I didn't want my fear to become their inheritance. I knew what it was like to feel incapable before I'd even tried something. I knew what embarrassment felt like. I knew the peculiar power of believing there were things other people could comfortably do that somehow weren't available to you.
Reading aloud was only one example. Those fears were mine. I didn't want to hand them down as family heirlooms. Of course, children inherit all sorts of things from us anyway. My sons have certainly collected a few of my less desirable habits with remarkable efficiency. But I became increasingly conscious that children don't only listen to what we tell them.
They watch where we stop.
Where does your world end?
I think we sometimes imagine that we teach children their limitations by explicitly telling them what they can't do. I'm not sure it's usually that obvious. Perhaps they simply notice the edges of our world.
We don't go there. We don't do that. People like us aren't very good at those things. That's too risky.
I'd never have the confidence. I'm not clever enough. Best be realistic.
Nobody necessarily sits a child down and teaches them these rules. They just accumulate. Eventually the edge of our map can quietly become the edge of theirs. I didn't have any grand parenting philosophy for preventing that. I certainly wasn't sitting at bedtime thinking about human expansion.
I was just Dad. A dad who sometimes struggled to read the book, so made up the story instead. A dad with ridiculous lumps growing out of his back who decided that explaining sebaceous fluid to two small boys wasn't nearly as useful as telling them that ordinary men occasionally grew crystals that helped save the world. But looking back, perhaps there was something underneath all that nonsense.
Ordinary people can do extraordinary things
The man crystals returned several times during their childhood. A lump would appear. One of the boys would notice. "Another man crystal, Dad?" Apparently so.
Eventually, they'd see the stitches and bruising after it had been removed and know that somewhere, somehow, Dad's latest contribution to humanity was presumably doing its work. As they got older, of course, they knew perfectly well what was happening.
But the story stayed. Even now, if another lump appears, I can expect some version of the same question. "All right, Dad. What part of the world are you fixing this time?" We laugh.
It's a tiny thing that belongs to the three of us. But I've found myself wondering recently whether those ridiculous little stories did something else too. Because hidden inside them was an idea I desperately wanted my sons to grow up with.
Ordinary doesn't mean insignificant.
You don't need permission to explore. The world is bigger than the bit you've already seen. Perhaps you are capable of contributing more to it than you currently know.
Nine metres is quite a long way down
Years later, I found myself canyoning with my sons. If you've never been canyoning, part of the experience involves standing on rocks considerably higher than seems sensible and jumping into pools of water considerably smaller than you'd ideally like them to be.
At one point, my eldest reached a jump of around nine metres. My youngest, still younger and smaller at the time, was taking on jumps of around five.
Five metres is a long way down when you're a kid. Nine metres is a long way down when you're anyone. I was considering the situation with what I regarded as an entirely appropriate amount of adult caution.
They jumped. Just went. No enormous ceremony. No lengthy negotiation with themselves. Off the rocks and into the water. I remember watching them.
I don't believe for a second that bedtime stories or man crystals made my sons jump from those rocks. Children become themselves. They have their own personalities, experiences, fears, courage, mistakes, and choices. Nor would I want to take credit for the men my sons are becoming.
But I do sometimes look at them and smile. They're two of the most fearless people I know. Not fearless because nothing frightens them. Fearless because the existence of uncertainty doesn't seem to automatically mean stop.
Maybe some of the seeds took.
Not everything we inherit belongs to us
I've thought a lot about inheritance as I've grown older. Not money or houses or possessions. The invisible kind. Beliefs. Fears. Stories. Possibilities. The things handed to us by parents who had them handed to them by parents before that.
Much of it is wonderful. Some of it isn't. Perhaps part of growing up is recognising that we don't have to pass everything on simply because it reached us.
Some things deserve to continue. Some things can stop with us. Some things can be changed before we hand them over. I couldn't go backwards and remove the fear that a little boy once developed around reading aloud.
But perhaps I could make sure that fear didn't decide what bedtime looked like for his children. So I made up stories. Badly. I forgot half of them. My sons corrected me. We laughed.
Somewhere amongst all that silliness, perhaps we created a little more room for possibility.
I never did give my sons any man crystals
They're young men now.
They're still growing, still discovering themselves, and, like all of us, they'll make mistakes and collect a few scars along the way. I have no idea where their lives will eventually take them. That's theirs to discover.
But I do know this. I never wanted to give my sons a perfect version of their dad. I couldn't have done that even if I'd tried.
I wanted them to see goodness. To understand contribution. To remain curious. To know that being an ordinary person never excluded them from doing extraordinary things.
Most of all, I wanted the boundaries of my world to have absolutely nothing to do with the size of theirs. I never did manage to give my sons any man crystals.
But perhaps I gave them something better. The belief that, should the world ever need a little help, they might have something worth contributing. If another lump appears on my back tomorrow? Well, apparently, somewhere in the world, there's still work to do.
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Aran Bray, Founder of Be Outstanding, Speaker & Human Performance Coach
Aran Bray is the creator of The Take One Moment Method (TOM), a practical approach to human behaviour that focuses on the moment before action. His work centres on why people don’t act on what they already know, and how automatic patterns are formed through repetition, conditioning, and emotional response. By helping individuals recognise and interrupt these patterns in real time, he enables lasting behavioural change and genuine self-direction. Aran works with individuals, leaders, and organisations to develop the ability to act clearly when it matters most.
