in a traumatic situation. I was so busy trying to survive that I couldn't process what was happening in the moment. The essential tools, you need to do trauma resolution. We ask ourselves, why are they staying with this abusive partner? what becomes pretty difficult and what is more in that trauma Bonding realm is the other is more the two-way one that you're talking about where both people have got some kind of trauma history We know it's not just necessarily moments. It can also be death by a thousand paper cuts What's the difference between just , I got hurt doing a thing versus I got traumatized after a thing. Ever feel like you're carrying something incredibly heavy, but you can't name it? Do you keep finding yourself blowing up or shutting down on the people you love, despite your best efforts and your promises to stop?, you're in the right place. In this episode, I'm having a conversation with Eric Blom, a licensed , psychotherapist out here in Colorado specializing in trauma. He's not only a colleague of 10 years, he's a dear friend and he's who I call in my practice when I feel stuck on how to help a client. The conversations around how men are carrying Unprocessed trauma are incredibly necessary. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is killing us in record numbers between suicide, overdose, isolation, and emotional collapse. We're losing men in this country. Hopefully, this conversation helps you or a loved one change that pattern and cycle. Let's get into it. You are listening to American Masculinity hosted by Timothy Wienecke. Tim, a former Air Force sergeant is a licensed psychotherapist and award-winning men's advocate. This show offers insight and education, not a substitute for therapy. You take a nuanced look at the roles men inherit and the systems that shape them, grounded in real stories and committed to the quiet work of carrying forward what serves you and letting go of what doesn't. Hey, Eric, man, I really appreciate you coming on here. I'm really excited about this. we were talking about a little bit before, I've been looking forward to exploring some of these because our work lines up and overlaps, but you are my trauma nerd. Like you're the guy I go to who's read all the things, and so I'm, I'm really looking forward to deepening some of this and sharing that with folks., I am very honored that you decided to welcome me on the show, give us a way to distinguish pain and discomfort from traumatic experiences. Like what's the difference between just, you know, I got hurt doing a thing versus I got traumatized , during a thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, I'm standing on the shoulders of giants and paraphrasing this. my shortest way of talking about it is in a traumatic situation. I was so busy trying to survive that I couldn't process what was happening in the moment. Right. And so, um, you know, I think Bessel VanDerKolk actually used the word, your experience is shattered in a moment like that, in an overwhelming moment. And of course we know it's not just necessarily moments. It can also be death by a thousand paper cuts where Mm-hmm. grow up in an abusive household. And it adds up to experiences like that. But for ease. If there's a particularly traumatic moment, that's what happens. And additionally, what happens then is those, those shards from the shattering of your experience, you know, represent your various, sensations and thoughts and everything, and emotions from that experience, rather than going into your long-term memory where they belong. hang out in short-term memory for a long, long time. And the whole time they're there, they produce symptoms. Mm-hmm. So this is where we get PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. I've even thought that there's a certain, poetic aspect to some of the symptoms, like the flashbacks and the nightmares and that where it's like some part of us is saying, well, hey, you feel safe enough to sleep? How about we process it now? You Mm-hmm. that kind of thing. Yeah, it's that like that vessel is just full and it's looking for any place to release it. exactly, exactly. That's how I would, I would sort of define it, that it, , becomes overwhelming and hangs out in the body., and it's just, , it nags and hurts and creates symptoms until it can be processed. And, I don't say that in any way to blame or shame anybody for taking the time they need to process it because, , there It's hard. right? There are barriers,, right? you and I both intern to the same trauma clinic and one of the things that was really telling to me is the protocols to take somebody through who's been traumatized aren't things that you would just do. Right. Right, like a friend trying to be there for you, you trying to talk it out with somebody. It's a unique set that we've figured out what to do with, but expecting somebody on their own to know that and to have a resource to do it with and safety to do it with is not just problematic, it's borderline impossible. Well, and on top of it, I think our culture has lost a lot of wisdom about how to Mm., and I think as therapists, we're stepping into a lot of that space. Since there isn't this public space, this shared space, we're so individualistic that a lot of this needs to be done in private space. That's right. Good man. I, I think acknowledging the distinction on like how we're programmed to do this and how we don't have that and why like going to therapy for traumas is so key and important. Mm-hmm. it'll help some of the guys that maybe hear this be okay coming into that space and to do that.'cause it's a hard call to make. It is. And since we're talking about, masculinity and gender and things like that as we know one of the big aspects of gender role training we get is to stay distant from our emotions, right? Is to not give access to our feelings. It's associated with weakness, it's associated with femininity, for Mm-hmm. You know, you're not masculine enough if you spend a lot of time in feelings and all that kind of thing. So the essential tools, you need to do trauma resolution. And we can go into another, description of how I think it happens, you know, now in our culture or how we can do Mm, culture. But you, you need to be able to feel the feelings in mm-hmm. get the processing done. And if you are, you know, strangers to your feelings, that's gonna be tough. Yeah. work first to get there. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's interesting too 'cause it's not, when we talk about feelings in this context or context around trauma, I think a lot of guys picture it like two women talking in a drama with like big snap bubbles, tears, big catharsis. Mm-hmm. In my experience as a trauma therapist for a lot of guys, yeah, there's heaviness. Yes, there's emotions, there's tears occasionally, but it's not like what you're scared of it being like. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me give you another thing too, because we are so taught to be so distant from our feelings. So many of us have never really had the experience of feeling them safely. Mm-hmm. We've never had the experience of feeling the feeling, come on, rise in intensity, in intensity, and then go back down. Mm-hmm. Many times people feel that rise in intensity and they panic Mm-hmm. don't know where it's going. They don't know how high it's going. They don't know how long it's gonna last, and they don't know it's gonna come back down Mm-hmm. nobody has sat with them to have a feeling, Mm-hmm. you know? Well, I think my kind of theory on that's a little different. I, I think it's that in the last few generations we've removed fathers from the parenting dynamic. Okay. essentially broken out the provider role so explicitly all the way from World War II until fairly recently in our culture that men weren't there. And I think the way that men visibly process thing is a bit different than women do. Not that the emotions are different, but the way that we exhibit them and the way that our culture allows us to is different. Mm-hmm. by not having boys around fathers to learn by watching, Mm-hmm. you see is the stoic, tired guy that gets home from work. And so I think for the last few generations we've just been denied as men the ability to process those emotions by example. We just haven't had the guys around. And the expectation was, since it's a woman's thing to process emotions and a man's thing to get things that the woman would be able to teach the boys how to do so. But we're a little different. It doesn't work. Well, then you get back into that thing you're talking about with individualism Mm-hmm. as aspects of gender role training. then the idea that you would sit with somebody to have a feeling is what, that's Yeah. Right? Mm-hmm. and, and here's a, here's another thing I'll say about you know, ideal. trauma resolution, and this is something we can do, even just as a dyad of the client and the therapist. Mm-hmm. I believe that the only way we can truly resolve trauma is with someone else. And here's why. Mm-hmm. you're busy being in your fields, as the kids say these days, you're not looking out for bear, right? You literally need a buddy to look out for you while you're doing this because you aren't able, right? you literally can't create safety while stuck in the past. You cannot. And you need to be there for some period of time in that past to get that processing done Mm-hmm. somebody else, but by your side. Our nervous systems just aren't programmed to let us Mm-hmm. I think that kind of, that ideal carries us a little bit forward into the next question that I wanted to ask you of how do men, women, and non binary folks differ in common expression of traumatic symptoms? Mm-hmm. I think this is where the isolation of American men is exacerbating male trauma. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. women, women at least have a, a community impact and a socialization to share things, to share pain, to talk, and men and not having that when we are experienced trauma, we're more likely to lock down. No, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, the thing that's been observed in feminine persons typically is that they'll what they call tend and befriend, as opposed to isolate. And I think you're absolutely right that there's this, tendency on the part of men when they're feeling poorly and when they're feeling vulnerable to isolate, because they don't want anybody to see them weak. Mm-hmm. word weak is to men, right? Like, and vulnerable Yeah. synonym of weak, and that's just not something that's in the code, I think the kind of primary experience doesn't really differ Mm-hmm. When you are traumatized and when you begin to experience symptoms, there's a divergence that occurs because of culturally mediated factors like we're talking about, Mm-hmm. the tendency of some groups to be more apt to be collectivist and support one another and others to isolate. Mm-hmm. you know, that's also gonna vary idiosyncratically by people, by geography, by community and all that kind of thing. But I would say that the, the base experience is the same across all people, but you know, the, the ongoing experience changes depending on who you are and access to care and community that you have Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I, I see that, and it, you know, it's good for you to bring up the idea that when we talk about men, women, and non binary folks, differing when we're using a brush, that broad individual's experiences are going to be what an individual's experience is. That's right. Mm-hmm. But I think it's helpful to identify how these things come out so that if somebody's loved, one is listening Mm-hmm. don't understand how somebody's hurting, but they're seeing some of these things, Yeah. them start a conversation. Yeah. Yep. And, and so like one of 'em that I see pretty regularly in my practice is that protective anger. Mm-hmm. I think men are more prone to protective anger when they've been traumatized. Where you feel unsafe, you've got an emotion you can't handle that you can't name, and so you use anger as that secondary emotion to come forward and protect you, and protect the people around you. And it goes awry Yeah. because you're not, you're not on your right mind. Mm-hmm. your bodyguard of pain and you're just gonna act like a bouncer. Mm-hmm. Right. And I see that a lot more with my masculine clients than the within the women I work with. Not that there haven't been women that do that. Sure. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Depending on how they're acculturated and how they, individual, I. Culture of one and all Yeah. right? I think Yuri Broon Brenner, you know, we know this from school, Okay. So now you gotta tell people what that is. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, in, in brief Yuri Broin Brenner has the, gosh, I if I'm gonna remember the name correctly. I think it's the ecological model of development, something like that where, you know, you start at the beginning of a concentric circle of like your family of origin. That's a community you belong to. Then you belong to your larger family. Then your, county, your city, your state, your, all the way out to the K chronosphere, meaning what part, what points in the timeline are you, you know, to where Yeah. a single black woman mother in 1950 versus a single black woman mother today. Things are gonna be a little different. things are de, the differences are decreasing. But anyway, we can talk about that and, you know, but, but that's what I'm talking about there, Mm-hmm. ultimately is a culture of one, because there are idiosyncratic experiences that you, you know, that you had only in your family of origin that Mm-hmm. had, but there's also all these other shared experiences you had from being in the same country, same culture, and that Mm-hmm. One where we go crazy by culture. Right? So that, of course, is gonna impact all of this across the board and how we use it to connect, because our culture really drives us to connect in certain ways. And I think it's important too, to just keep, keep pounding on this. That culture is neither good nor bad. It just exists. And you gotta take the good with the bad to figure out how to address it, right? it, it mediates our experience at every Mm-hmm. Yeah. way or the other. something I want to throw out there too. You talk about differences in experiencing trauma. I just wanna notice I. That my trans people are experiencing trauma differently right now Mm-hmm. they're feeling so wildly excluded from power, Mm-hmm. and by power. Mm-hmm. you know, to what, you know, to where there, there had been some sense of, love and acceptance that people were beginning to feel, just got yanked out from under them. And so Yeah. I think it's gonna be a lot easier, unfortunately, people to have, for trans people to have worse trauma symptoms now because of that feeling of am I ever gonna be Yeah. Well, and they're just carrying, like whenever you're talking about systems of oppression, adding to trauma, Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. you're talking about like a police state and young men just having to deal with being traumatized by armed people. Mm-hmm. Hassling them, scaring them, threatening them, and they can't do anything about it. That lowers your resistance and your resilience over time. It grinds away at things, Mm-hmm. think in addition to just the critical moments that we're seeing for different populations right now, that grind is really gonna start to be felt and we're gonna see different bits and pieces of different communities have deeper struggles across the board just because their capacity is being diminished by this. Here, here. Yeah. I feel like we left off somewhere that, we need to close a circle, but I can't remember which one. Well I think, Yeah, I don't think I wanna make that reach. I was, going to compare it to the justice system with men versus women. Hmm. And you know, both genders engaged with the justice system have different problems, but men get harsher sentences for the same crimes than women. Men get longer sentences based on your race and your socioeconomic level. That all adds to it as well. But there's a general trauma that we see in just going down to school, like elementary school age kids, boys tend to be suspended much faster than girls for the same behavior. So there is a distinct lack of trust that men have of the system to care for them. I see. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And we have to kinda expect that as like the cost of doing business is always how I thought of it. Like, you're a guy, take your hit, move on. Mm-hmm. because to lose that perspective, to think of the system as hurting you, again, that vulnerability that you talked about so well earlier of now I'm feeling weak, I'm feeling vulnerable. That's not masculine. I'm losing my masculine status, I'm losing my sense of self. I can't do that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah., I want to, acknowledge that one of my, one of my ears is listening to, for, a voice of folks who have been impressed by masculine folks hearing Absolutely. should I have sympathy for people who Yeah. you know what I mean? Treated in that way. That's small potatoes compared to the way I've been put down. Mm-hmm. I guess the thing I would say back to someone without objection is that as feminists have long understood, hurts everybody, Yeah. Mm-hmm. and so, and this is how some of these systems get, created, promulgated and maintained strengthened and enhanced is by the abuse that men receive as well from these systems of oppression. Yeah, and I, I, there's two kind of things that I always answer that to as well, is, a 10-year-old boy didn't do that to you 20 years ago. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. this boy for that experience based on what his fathers and grandfathers did, Mm-hmm. that's outta proportion and it's, perpetuating a cycle. Yeah. And two, we would love it if everybody could just be super empathetic and do hard things for other people all the time. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. In my experience, when you're talking about a mass of people, that's not how change occurs. Mm-hmm. You've gotta sell people on This is also good for you, even if it's, you don't want to be the people that do this. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Like sometimes that's all you get is you don't wanna be the people doing this. You don't wanna look at yourself in the mirror now that you know this is happening and be the person that's doing this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But by reminding everybody that the patriarchy is, is a thing, the systems of re oppression are real, and they have fundamentally hurt men in dozens and dozens of ways. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. gonna help bring a lot more guys on board. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a nice little social justice run on how trauma is expressed via gender. Right. Yeah. Oh man. I feel like I want to, if you're okay with this, Yeah. back around to trauma resolution and what that would look like in our culture. Right. I gave that Great. Vision of what it would look like in a more collectivist situation. Mm-hmm. so I'll just, know, give you my, I have a, a nerdy way of looking at it, which I call emotional time travel.'cause I'm a Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. into sci-fi and stuff. But this is, this is also standing on the shoulders of giants and piecing together stuff from, you know, bustle, VanDerKolk, and so many. And I feel bad that I'm not thinking of her name. trauma and, what I'm talking about. Uh, just send it to me and I'll, I'll put it over the screen. wait, wait, wait. I got it. I got it. Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman. There we go. Yeah. Judith, uh, yeah. Yeah. Her important work and Fundamental, pivotal work on trauma. right, a, a Mm-hmm. amazing reinterpretation of Freudian and the errors that were made based on patriarch home Mm-hmm. we can go into that whole nother thing, but standing on the shoulders of giants like that, here's a very short and almost cartoonishly simple view of how trauma resolution can occur. In my emotional time, travel vision, is the first thing we do is we create a safe landing pad in the Mm-hmm. a safer one where we have, you know, at least a dyad of the therapist and the client, and we do whatever we need to do to create as much safety as possible. Mm-hmm. we invite the material to come into the present. We do that, allow that time travel to occur where those shards of shattered experience that are hanging out in your event memory get to come into the present. Then we do the processing of that, right? But, and usually that involves feeling the feels Mm-hmm. you like it or not. And riding them with somebody guiding you. Right, exactly. With someone, literally or figuratively holding your hand through this process Mm-hmm. that you don't have to panic when the feelings get big and ugly and overwhelming. Takes a little longer, but it, it's worth it. it's, it's way better. right. The way better. So anyway, so then we process it and then we allow the memory to go and be filed where it belongs in long-term memory, where you can have access to the cognitive information as well as some of the emotional information without being overwhelmed when it shows up because you've handled the overwhelm, you've got it taken care of and processed What I, what I love about that frame and the way you're explaining it, is a fundamental difference between a trauma trained therapist and one who isn't. Hmm. One of the things I hear about a lot working with the traumatized populations that I work with is if they go to somebody who doesn't have the training in trauma, Mm-hmm. that they come in and they're expected to just dump it out without safety. Mm. Yeah. that counselor isn't trained with how to create safety for not just the client but themselves. So the amount of first responders I work with that come to me as a second or third therapist who were like, yeah, my therapist broke down crying and I had to take care of her when I told her the story. Ah, And so I stopped going to therapy 'cause that's awful. Yeah. And so I think that's another important reminder is not all therapists are trauma trained. Eric and I advocate for that. It's certainly what I expect of people I supervise and people I teach, and it's still not part of the basic curriculum for a lot of masters level clinicians., this brings up another thing. This is almost more like a little tidbit for the therapist, but I think it's also useful for just about anyone who, well, just about anyone, period Mm-hmm. There's a really useful tool I learned about in terms of managing the differences between compassion and empathy as a way to avoid what you just described, Mm-hmm. who is trying to be there for someone who is in trauma. Mm-hmm. there's actually some solid research about this. The, there's differences in empathy and compassion. Empathy is feeling with that means Mm-hmm. thing as or as close as possible as the other person. Mm-hmm. And compassion is feeling for, want to help you. That sucks. Whatever you are Mm-hmm. be there for you. And it's the difference between kind of like being in the pit with somebody versus being outta the pit and holding A rope. for them to Yeah. A hundred percent. And, and you need some empathy to be Mm-hmm. have compassion and work with somebody. But what's so fascinating, I talked about the research. They've actually stuck people in functional magnetic resonance imaging devices and they have elicited empathy and they have elicited compassion. And they notice that the folks where they elicit empathy, the pain centers of their brain lit up because they're Yeah. pain of the other person. And when they elicit compassion, I want to, you know, help you, I wanna be there for you. It actually elicits the reward centers of the brain. Mm-hmm. So this is how those of us who have been in the trauma biz for a while can I have to operate. Yeah, no, that's the, dead. uh, I, I feel, I feel so good right now because I love when research backs up my preconceived notions, so thank you for that. My confirmation bias is just buzzing all over the place. I wonder, I have to wonder now how much that's tied to the, the kind of classic couple's problem of the more masculine partner tending to be the fixer instead of the feeler. Hmm. I, I gotta tell you that, personal experience in doing a couple in partner work is there is no gender that has a monopoly on that. Perfect. Perfect. that, right. and I think, yeah. all kinds of genders have been trained in our culture, especially Mm-hmm. outcome focused and not Instead of process focused. All right. That tracks. Like, That tracks I, I'm gonna throw out another little tidbit that I, I give my couples all the time, and I, and I think it was, I came out of a consultation group that I belong to. One of the members has talked about it. And, we talked about the four S's. I told you about this before? No, go for it. in couples work. Okay, so the four Ss. So this is like how to help get a read on what your partner needs in any given moment, so as not to leap immediately to solutions, right? The first Mm-hmm. do you need silence? Do you need me to zip my lip, shut my mouth and let you vent? And then you'll know I'm here, know, kind of thing. Mm-hmm. Do you need support? Which is exactly like silence, but, oh man, that sucks. I'm so sorry. You know, supportive words Mm-hmm. give a little feedback. And then, and only then after those, then we can maybe talk about solutions. Where do we go? Bury the bodies, what do you need? You know? And then the last one is kind of more, more fun, like it's, you know, or maybe you just need sex. Right? So that's I'm really glad that's in there. I feel like it's been very healing for me at times in my life. Mm. Mm-hmm. So I, I love that. And it, it kind of lines up with, and I, I can't remember whether it was you or Melody that I took this from, but I hand it to almost every client. And a couple that kind of struggles with those dynamics is if you don't know what to do in the moment, Mm-hmm. you're, you see your person struggling, Mm-hmm. am I helping or listening? Mm. And, and just by just asking that question, there's so much freedom for the person who wants to fix it. Because now the listening is a service. Like, by having it named, by having it acknowledged and by having it asked for, you're free to put in the effort to do that.'cause listening is hard. It is a task, especially for somebody who is driven to fix. yeah. No, absolutely and I have so much empathy for people who are driven to fix, especially people who are like in engineering fields. And once again, that's a lot of dudes, right? But Outcome focused. right. Like they spend day after day after day doing nothing but fixing shit, Mm-hmm. They're really good at it. It's a great skill set to have. Or they engineer their way outta every problem. Right. And Mm-hmm. shares a problem and they want to engineer their way out of it, you know? And There you go. Of course they We fall back on what we're good on. Yeah. We fall back on what we're good at. Right. Yeah. just sometimes I think though, the way to intimacy is to be willing to do the things that you weren't classically good at. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. be comfortable with that process. Like I, this came, has been coming up a lot lately with the isolation stuff and also just with the volatility, with the political situation on both ends of the spectrum. I think I'm one of the few therapists that gets to see like hardcore right guys and hardcore left guys Mm-hmm. and all of them are feeling this masculine isolation right now. And one of the things that's been really helpful is reminding them that you don't make the friends of your childhood in the first meeting. It takes time. You have to be around person, figure out their foibles, see them do some things, see them mess up some things, see them lodge, you see them critique you and build trust over time. And the only way to do that is to slowly try some of the things that you're not as confident in around somebody. And that's what friends are for. That's what, that's why we put up with each other. That's, that's where we find that love connection and affection. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, and you know, since, I mean, we're straying into territory of, you know, couples and I Mm-hmm. Obviously, trauma plays into relationships a lot. How can it not? Mm-hmm. you talking about that also brings up. You know, the, the trauma of having been raised male Mm-hmm. Isolated from your, actively isolated from your own emotions, your own Mm-hmm. reactions, Yeah. so then someone, you know, your partners across from you and asking you to sit with them and their feelings, and you're like, the I don't know how to do this. I haven't sat with my own feelings. How do you, what are you Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. nobody, and I go back to this thing, nobody has sat with anybody who's masculine, and when they're going through a feel, through a Mm-hmm. it's like these, the whole thing is shove it aside until later, you know, but then later never comes Yeah. you What, and I also think there's also a, kind of disregard around empathy and how men describe feelings. That's bo that's begin to bother me more and more. Mm-hmm. you, if you see two guys talking about a breakup, one guy won't use emotional language to talk about. It'll say, she ripped my heart out, Mm-hmm. and they'll use these phrases and that's not incorrect, Mm-hmm. right? We, we need to stop kind of pathologizing, kind of kinetic physical language on emotional response as though it is not enough. Mm-hmm. Instead, we need to incorporate it into the conversation. Okay. And it's a great way for people across that burden to connect over it. And then I think that's really been a big piece for guys because they, a lot of 'em can describe like, this is what's physically happening to me. Mm-hmm. And maybe they don't have the other language, but that doesn't mean that the person who feels that hasn't felt that sensation and can't meet them there. I, I love you saying this, that it, because as I work with anyone who is out of touch with their feelings one way or the other, it starts with the body. Mm-hmm. know, I, I ask a person how they feel. I don't know. Mm-hmm. so how would I know? Okay. Well, what do you notice in your body? Well, I notice there's a tightness in my chest, and I notice there's like a twitch in my right eye, Mm-hmm. that my breath is coming up a little short. Okay. All Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, man. does that happen? Okay. One of the, one of the big ones that, that blew my mind into the story I tend to share with clients because when we were talking about the physical response to various emotional states Mm-hmm. how that's in our a brain. Mm-hmm. That's under a frontal lobe. So people without training will tend to respond the same way physically to different emotions. And the one that blew my mind was I mistook shame for anger consistently. Hmm. And so for me, when I'm really angry, I clench my fist in my jaw because that's what you do. And you like your a brain, like, I'm angry, I might fight. Let's go. Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I'm feeling ashamed, I clenched my jaw, but my hands are relaxed. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah. And it's that shame and embarrassment that like gulp effect, right? That like, ooh, like that, that kind of like that cringe Mm-hmm. about it. Yeah. Yeah. And because I'd never paid attention and no one, like no one gave me that language. Mm-hmm. many times where I'd be shamed or I felt shamed or something like that, and then responded with anger Mm, because I didn't understand the shame I was feeling at the time. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah., anger's one of the three emotions you get assigned to you when you're masculine. Mm-hmm. like Yep. Angry, happy, horny, Right, exactly. And occasionally goofy if it's with your kids or, maybe. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're that guy, you can be that guy. If you're that guy. Yeah. Yeah. yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Love that guy. okay, so talking about this is causing me to wanna nerd out for just a half a second on emotions. This is why you love I love it. everything. Yeah. All right. Bring it on, nerd. So I'm thinking right now about the, a book by Lisa Felman Barrett called How Emotions Are Made, the Secret Life of Emotions or something along those lines., one of the things that she has done is sort of turned existing emotion theory on his head, She makes this big distinction between affect and emotion. Mm-hmm. Whereas affect is that basic bodily response. That's almost a reflexive, right? It starts off with is this good or bad? And then goes into is this threatening or not? And that kind of thing. You know, very kind of basic fundamental responses. And then all the rest of it is mediated by culture. All of it. Okay. you I'll take that. to, to where there's all been all this like cross-cultural research where they say, oh yeah, this is a universal emotion. Well, that's because they had multiple choice Mm-hmm. Yeah. And they did not allow the people from the target culture to come up with the answers for what they're feeling. Mm-hmm. Right. And we see this in, there's these words that are, meant to be somehow untranslatable between languages. I'm thinking of the, is it the Swedish word? Haga? That's like that HY with an alala, GGE, which is some species of like, you know, contented Mm-hmm. and like when you're with a warm tea in a book or this Yeah, that like that thing from Ted Lasso. Okay. It was in one of the episodes. Yeah, That one. Right. And I, I, having grown up bilingual in German, I know that there's a similar word called mite in German, which is also similarly difficult to translate, yeah, you know, it's, it's in the same ballpark. yeah. And, and what, just to give you another example of how this works, Feldman Barrett says she really likes this modern cultural trend of saying that feeling when, and then you describe a situation, Mm-hmm. right? And of course, that's a highly, that description is highly culturally embedded, people tend to be able to relate to whatever that thing is that, you know, that feeling when you're standing in line and then the person goes on, break Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. the cashier, whatever, you know, goes on break. You're Yeah. I think the distinction there is the purpose of. The front end acknowledgement of that feeling of when brings emotional into the cognitive. Mm-hmm. rather than this analytical, like I'm justifying a story and telling you point by point what happened. Mm-hmm. trying to relate to you what something felt like and finding the path to that and the language cues for that is gonna be pivotal. yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, Well, I, well, wasn't it, I, I forget, isn't it something like 70% of the studies that our entire field have been founded on have been found to be flawed? In large part just because of poor research techniques, but also because it's typically done on white college students, Yeah, like white American college students. Oh, I got a good one for this. In the, there's a, there's a book called The Weirdest People in the World, and the weird is an acronym for Western educated individualistic rich and Democratic, something like that. Sure. right. And so in the first chapter, he talks about how for the longest time. Researchers believed that facial recognition was only done on one half of the brain, only one half of the brain was responsible for it. that's because they were testing only these highly literate college students when they were doing this test. Well, they started doing it cross culturally, and they'd go to cultures who aren't literate, and they found that those people are reading faces with both halves of the brain, Mm-hmm. and oh, by the way, they're way more emotionally intelligent. Yeah. Well, and I think that's, there, there's a conversation around that, about accepting that our culture is gonna be good at some things and bad at others, Mm-hmm. to accept that and move through it. Mm-hmm. what, what I think people hear when their defensive button pops off there is, well, what are we just gonna go back to being illiterate? No. No. And. Mm-hmm. We can talk about like, you know, not only teaching your kids how to read, but asking them how the books make them feel. And Asking them, yeah, right. Like, just how to get around in the world. Mm-hmm. and I like, I had that response the first time I heard that.'cause I know the study you're talking about. I was like, we're not that bad. You're like, eh, calm down. It's okay. It's okay. I mean, this is a whole, this is a whole nother can of worms. We could open another do another episode on this, but I, you know, it caused me to think that everyone in our culture is perhaps slightly on the, on the autism spectrum, Relative to ability to kinda read social cues, read faces, read emotions, that kind of thing. And there Mm-hmm. there that some other study could expand upon, but that, that's one of the things that caused me to think. Well, I think that's the distinction of like how much our culture values entrepreneurship, Mm-hmm. and if you're going from a purely capitalistic, purely entrepreneurial lens. Mm-hmm. You can't have much empathy Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. like that's where a lot of breakage starts to happen. You know, letting an employee go home for paternity leave versus demanding they stay for their can, continue their labor while being, you know, supported by the company, et cetera. All that stuff comes from protecting the profit and the entrepreneurship. And since we are an entrepreneurial culture, we probably have taken it a little too far, right? Well, and, bringing this you know, back around to emotion, I want to I want to grind one little ax I have on Mm. if I may, Mm-hmm. the subject of emotion, which is, so often I hear folks and particularly masculine folks saying things like, okay, well, when you're making these decisions, you can't have any emotion. Yeah. That's crap. like, have no emotion when you're making this decision. And whenever I hear that, I, it smells like hypocrisy to me. And here's why I. It is impossible for any human being to make any decision without emotion. There's Yeah. thing. The question is, which emotions are you using? Mm-hmm. you using brutality are you using, you know, uh, um, you know, obliviousness? Are you using, Well, are you using drive? Are you using, you know, like there's, there's positive emotions that don't necessarily touch on others that can still be useful in those moments, right? mm-hmm. the feeling you get when you're working on a hard problem to find a solution. Mm-hmm. Right. That's an awesome feeling. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it's not always about this empathetic connection of like bonding every system, what we do to other people. Mm-hmm. you're right, the, the whole idea, and I get so many guys at tech like this, where they're like, well, I'm a logical person. And I'm like, that's true. And you're missing a, a lot of information that you could be using to make your decisions with. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, and, and you know, when people object to me saying that it's impossible to do anything without emotion, I remind them that the, Latin root of emotion is the same as motivation or motive. Mm-hmm. You can't do anything without a motive. Mm-hmm. And if you have a motive, you have an emotion. Mm-hmm. it works. Yeah. And I think that numbness is really hurting guys. Like they did that study around a cardiology Mm-hmm. they figured out that by telling all the men that if they stress that they die, that they shortened lifespans. Do you remember this study? No, So there's a woman with a TED Talk. I'll, I'll link it in the show notes, Mm-hmm. stress is good. I. Okay. Stress is why you get up for work. Stress is why you get the thing done. Stress in and of itself, while not necessarily comfortable all the time, is a useful and productive emotion. It gets you outta Burnout. Mm-hmm. is not stress. Mm-hmm. Overwhelmed is not stressed, anxious is not stressed. And so what they did by telling like a generation of boomers that like, oh my God, you've got heart disease, you can't stress anymore, you're gonna die. Mm-hmm. made them fearful every time they experience stress Mm. and fear locks you up, constrains your blood vessels, and makes you far more likely for a stroke or a heart attack. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so just by convincing men that stress is fear. Mm-hmm. shortened their lifespans completely on accident, right? These were good doctors trying to help people doing their best with the information they had, Mm-hmm. but that's that lack of awareness around emotions that are really starting to cause men significant pain. We need to get that awareness back. We need to get that language back into our culture, and we need to get that connection with others reestablish so we can live healthier lives. Yes, yes. All right. So once again, coming back to emotion and the value of it and why we would be talking about this in a podcast about masculinity, right? Is as we say, , so many men and masculine folks have been injured by this notion that, , you need to not feel, Mm-hmm. to not show emotion. You need to not express emotion. You need to not do all that. And what we're suggesting as an alternative, . Is this idea that you just clean off the lens so that you can see the things that are already there. Mm-hmm. You know, you're gonna have that base affect your body is gonna do a thing with something that happens. You're gonna Mm-hmm. that heart rip outta your chest. Mm-hmm. you know, whatever it is. When a thing happens, why not give it a name? You know, give it some kind of recognition Some kind of purpose. some kind of purpose, and then use it. As Yeah. right? It, it is motivating you, it is pushing you in a direction. Are you gonna let it push you like a, you know, like a ring on the nose of a bull? Are you gonna Mm-hmm. you around or are you gonna actually own it Mm-hmm. with it? That's Yeah. and I think that Yeah. a positive masculine paradigm. Mm-hmm. and I think it's also imperative for recovering from and recognizing trauma. Here, here. The, the locking down of the trauma response makes sense, Mm-hmm. don't know what else to do, you gotta keep your shit together. Mm-hmm. And the problem is, is that no one can do so indefinitely, Yeah. which means that as a guy who's been traumatized, who's trying to hold it together, at some point you will pop off. Mm-hmm. Whether that's a depressive episode, an anger episode, there's so many different ways it comes out. It will, except you won't pick where, Yes. and therefore your trauma will re-traumatize you over and over and over until you figure out the language and the path to use what's happened to you to make you stronger. Yeah. Yeah. The, you're absolutely right. I, I couldn't agree more. And you know, the another way to look at this, you know, if, if I was talking about from a parts perspective, there's a part of you that is holding those shattered experiences we were talking about is being in charge of asking you to process them, Mm-hmm. one of the ways it will try to get you to process them is to get you to act them out. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And we see this a lot in relationships, Mm-hmm. people will act out the old trauma from their past and will engage in, unintentional psychodrama, Mm-hmm. where they're re reenacting various things from their past as a way to put them in, you know, this, some other part of you is trying to put it in front of your mind to get you to process it, to Mm-hmm. it out. And Yeah. do it, you know, as sort of imagination or whatever you wanna call it like It'll bring it into your world. it'll bring it into your world to force you to see it and work on it. Mm-hmm. that's playing with a live ammo. And if you want to, okay, juggle it and let it blow up if that's your what you wanna do, or you have other options. And I think this moves really well into the next kind of question on the list, which is trauma bonding is now kind of entering the Zeit case and people are talking about it a lot. And this lines up directly with that, right? Trauma bonding is, you've got that part of yourself that was trauma traumatized. It's trying to act out in process. So you're drawn to partners that do the same shit Yeah. and you two fall into the same patterns that hurt you both, right? It's another traumatized person. And then you're just playing out the pattern of the last generation all over again and it feels like home. It feels intensely comforting because you know what happens next. It is literally familiar'cause it's like family. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Well, so, family of origin. Yeah. Mm-hmm. like is, is that like, that's my very simple understanding of trauma bonding, and I know that you mentioned before like you haven't deep dived this one in your normal, nerdy way, but does that line up with your understanding of it? It does. I mean, my understanding is there's a, a handful of varieties of trauma bonding. Like, you know, one of them that is, quite familiar is, you know, the, the person who's in an abusive relationship and doesn't leave. Mm-hmm. And we ask ourselves, why are they staying with this abusive partner? The, you know, when they're being sometimes physically hurt or, you know, financially drained or all these different things, why would they do that? And I think the answer, you know, is obviously, you know, individual for individual people, and there's different reasons and stuff. But one of the things is this trauma bonding some of it if we're unpacking trauma bonding, some of this is attachment, an attachment theory. Like what, what is your attachment style? And are you of an anxious style where you need to stay connected to somebody otherwise you'd feel worthless. Right. That's a, that's a cartoonishly simple way of putting it, but just to. Yeah. on it. Right? So that's one flavor of trauma bonding is kind of that one sided where there's one person who's truly the villain who's acting, you know, as a bad actor and doing bad things, and there's another person who's staying attached to them. And we can go into like Stockholm syndrome and Mm-hmm. about why that happens. Mm-hmm. flavor. But the other is more the two-way one that you're talking about where both people have got some kind of trauma history they've got some kind of, you know, what I've called psychodrama and and, if, if no one knows that, that means there's a number of different definitions. But the way I'm using it right now is, basically replaying a drama that happened when you were young or when you were traumatized, Mm-hmm. You're go, you're reenacting the steps of the dance or the, the Generational trauma. Generational trauma is a great example of that too. So you're basically reenacting these steps. And so if two people meet whose whose psychodramas mesh well enough where they Right, the parts that they're playing, Mm-hmm. seem very familiar as we've Mm-hmm. then they'll get together and they'll, it'll be very hard for them to come apart because those parts of them that are trying to get the trauma to process Mm-hmm. pushing 'em together. Like, no, I'm not gonna let you outta this until you figure this shit out right now. You know? Mm-hmm. And unfortunately, if Yeah. this unconsciously or subconsciously, then they can really hurt each other quite a bit. Well, and it's just really insidious. Like I, I had a long-term relationship that I was in with someone who I care for deeply, Mm-hmm. exactly how we landed and why we didn't make it was there's that resonance where the first time you feel it out in the world, you're like, oh, you understand me? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. there is some truth to when someone shares an experience with you, they have a deeper understanding of it that someone who hasn't, and it also makes it a lot easier to drown in the pool together. Here, here. okay, so trauma bonding, unpacking it. mm-hmm. I brought up, attachment and attachment theory, as a real quick and dirty attachment theory talks about, uh, the style in which we bond emotionally with other people. Based on what happened largely in the first year of our life. Mm-hmm. You find yourself in a world where the answer is like, not a lot, like the parent is gonna show up on their schedule, not yours. So you're gonna get cared for when they're good and ready and not when you cry and need it, then. Okay. That's the kind of world I'm in. I'm gonna adapt to that and I'm not gonna bother reaching out for what I need. I'm just gonna wait for it. Or I'm gonna make enough noise until they have to. so that is, that's more like the I would say, The anxious attachment, right? the anxious attachment is the Yeah. Is the answer neither yes nor no, but maybe., so there's like kind of the three main attachment styles. The first one being the secure attachment style. So, okay, I can trust people, I can trust the world to gimme good things when I reach out. So I can internalize that and I'm gonna be the secure style. Or the other one is the avoidance style, where it's like I'm not gonna bother reaching out. And in fact, if someone comes and gives me care, I, I might even be a little wary of that and then there's the maybe, right? Then there's, a less common one that's called like the disorganized style, which is sort of a combination of the anxious and avoidant Mm-hmm. flops. and that's usually when someone has a parent that is truly unpredictable, maybe has a severe mental illness or Yeah. thing. So there's that approach. Avoidance, I need you, but I'm scared of you. Mm-hmm. you when I'm scared of you. That kind of thing. So then, you know, well, how do these different attachment styles mesh? Right? So, the kind of ideal thing is secure. Secure. You get two people who are secure great when it happens, It is great when it happens. Right? Fantastic. They don't show up in therapy typically. weirdly enough. No, that's, that's not who we see. Yes. So they're, they're the ones that get the golden ticket and they're lucky. Right. other examples of pretty darn good are secure and any of the other insecure Mm-hmm. is, you know, the avoidant, the anxious or the disorganized, That's how you heal. who's right, if you're with somebody who's secure, then they can respond to you with whatever you need, And guide you to having what they have on some level, doing that and doing that. what becomes pretty difficult and what is more in that trauma bonding realm is when you have an anxious with an avoidant and that's pretty more normal. Right. And that happens very frequently. Mm-hmm. they're kind of attracted to each other, probably for the same reason that we're talking about, because your nervous system is trying to work it out. Mm-hmm. I finally get them to pay attention to me, Mm-hmm. for instance, this Oh man. They'll keep chasing me. This must be okay. right? So then Yeah. the more anxious person will chase the more avoidant person, the avoidant person will run, and there's the chase, and then round and round you go, and this is how you get into the cycles that they talk about in EFT emotionally focused therapy. Mm-hmm. and this relates back to trauma binding because a lot of those big trauma wounds end up playing out like this. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Those attachment wounds, right? I feel I, I need a hasten to add that attachment style. We talk about that being set in the first year of life, but it's not immutable., it can change for better or worse, depending on experiences later. But you do tend to fall back on that one that you, that you know, was set in that first year. So I just, I want to hasten to Yeah, people don't think it's, it's deterministic. Mm-hmm. Like, you can, you can heal from it, which was I remember when I first read that I was, my eyes were getting big. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, okay. You can get better. Okay. Okay. yeah, I wanna be careful here because I, I feel like it's gonna be an easy route for someone who's a rescuer to think of themselves, a someone who's helping an insecure person Mm-hmm. by rescuing them instead of modeling for them. So how does somebody ride that line? Okay. You just, you just, scratch the top of an iceberg. You ready for this? Oh, sure. All right. We're gonna get into the Carman Drama Triangle the, the next evolution of that, which is the traumatic transference roles. So Cartman first discovered what we now call triangulation, Mm-hmm. So he noticed that let's say there's two people that are having a conflict and you know, they're, one of 'em is maybe in the victim role and the other in the perpetrator role, or they're trying to figure out which is which. No, you did me wrong. No, you did me wrong. No, you're the asshole. No, you're the Mm-hmm. And so then what they do is they find another person to try to be the rescuer to sort of, you know, adjudicate. Mm-hmm. who in this case. And I like using the example of the A ITA on Reddit, you know, this subreddit called A ITA, that that's an acronym for MI the asshole Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good one. And it's where, it's where people triangulate in the entire internet to try? Yeah. right and who's wrong. Right. And, and they're like, they want to adjudicate this. So Put it in the public square. Let's see what comes back. Exactly. And you know, the thing I always talk about with my couples when I work with couples or partners is I say, what happens if you find the asshole? You know, what happens if you find the the one who's wrong? Is that gonna promote connection? Like, is that gonna bring you closer or is that gonna take one person and give them the blacked out of shame Mm-hmm. go off and be ashamed in the corner and there's no connection. Mm-hmm. Right. So this is, this is not ideal. This is not what we're trying to do. We're not trying Mm-hmm. who the jerk is here, Yeah. We're wanting to be on the same side of the table and, and figure things out. But just to, just to notice though that it's a very common reaction. So common, there's a whole subreddit for it, right? It's Mm-hmm. have this tendency to want to do this as, as creatures. Mm-hmm. Well, and just generally, the way that I frame it with folks is when you feel like your actions can't impact you, Mm-hmm. into one of these roles. Mm-hmm. I can't fix it, either I give up and the world's gonna happen to me, or I can't fix me, but I can, I can focus on them and fix them. Or, you know what? I can't fix me, but I can feel better by fucking some shit up. Right? No, you make a good point. Let's imagine a single case, traumatic situation. Let's imagine there's a lady walking down the street. Some guy mugs her, grabs her purse, knocks her down. What does the lady's brain do? In one 10th of a second, the lady's brain does a cast of characters to maximize her survival. Right. So her cast of characters goes, I'm the victim here. I need help. The person who just knocked me down is the perpetrator, and I need to stay away from them. And, and, or they might need later need some feedback, right? The people off to the side recording this on their cell phones or the bystanders, they're no help. I can ignore them. And the helpful looking person on the other side of the street coming my way with a look of concern on their face as a potential rescuer, I can move toward them. Mm-hmm. So all this happens like, boom, 10th of a second. Our brain does this to maximize our survival. Great system. So far, Yeah. Very adaptive. very adaptive, has helped us survive as a species for a long time. Okay, so when does the problem happen? The problem happens and, and I kind of alluded to this, is when it exists in a system like a family system The rotation of roles does not happen naturally. So an ideal circumstance might be, you know, mom breaks her leg, the family rallies around her, she's truly the victim. Other people are the rescuers and this kind of thing. And maybe one of them is the bystander, who's the, the lookout, if you will, in some fashion., what's a problem is when somebody has one of the roles locked up, Mm-hmm. if, you know, going back to there's a substance use disorder, they have victim locked up tight. Mm-hmm. else gets to be the victim and somebody else always has to be the rescuer. This is where we get into codependence. Right, where someone is constantly doing the rescuing, then there's gonna be the bystander who's like, I'm gonna stay a thousand miles away from this bullshit. You all do that over there. I'm gonna be over here. Mm-hmm. there's the perpetrator role who's like, oh, you're not gonna pay attention to me. How about I knock over a seven 11? Okay, now you're gonna pay attention to me, aren't you? Yeah. Or they're the family truth teller who's gonna tell it like it is, even if it hurts. Yeah. That asshole. Right? Right. So, so this is where it gets problematic. Mm-hmm. The good news is that when you're doing trauma resolution, you can utilize this framework to help yourself heal from traumas that involve other people. Mm-hmm. And the way you do this is by integrating each of the roles. Now, what does that mean for each one of the roles involved in a situation like that? Your brain wants to know the answer to a number of different questions so that you can take the fre the threat flag and put it back down in the database, right? so for instance, the lady who got mugged, she might want to ask of the victim role. How could I have been so stupid vulnerable? It doesn't have to make sense. It Mm-hmm. but the brain still wants to know, how could I have been in this victim role? What could I have done differently to not be a victim? What How do I never have that happen again? How do I never have that happen again? Bingo. Right? And that's really the crux of many of the of the questions. And she might ask herself of the perpetrator, how could someone do that to me?, how could someone have done this to me? How can I trust people and are there people that I can't trust? And is there some qualities about this person I should have seen coming, you know, once again, so that this will never happen again. And so you can see like for each of these roles, there is an important question to answer. And I gotta say a, a sad reason why the trauma dynamics model added the bystander role so many people came in trying to resolve traumas and they would say something like, surely my mom knew what my dad was doing to me, and why didn't she do anything about Mm-hmm. Like, how can I trust somebody to have my back when there's these bystanders who are doing nothing to change the situation? Yeah. Right? That kind of thing. So sadly, people were, were asking that question over and over in their Mm-hmm. they were trying to resolve trauma. And so that, that's It's a question. It's a question I hear a lot from people that were hurt as kids. Right, right. Yeah. Then strangely enough, you would think, well, why would the rescuer or hero role ever have any problem there? Isn't that a great thing? You know, where, where I get this is, let's say there's a parent who snatched their kid away from an oncoming car at the last second. the question they have in their mind is, do I need to spend the rest of my natural life within three feet of my child so they don't get killed? It's not a great way to live. And obviously there's, there's less When if there's a trauma and you were the rescuer, well, now do I have to always be strong? Mm, we're get into masculinity a lot, absolutely. has this built in as a feature, not a bug. Or maybe it's a bug, not a feature, you know, hard to say, right? think it's a bug always need to be strong to be their rescuer that kind of and need to be seen as such. and need to be seen as such. And I need to do all the fixing, right? Like we talk about, Yeah. this is why there's a strong tendency for there to be some codependents then in, Mm-hmm. men. That that's the way codependence shows up in men. It can show up similarly, but a little different in other genders. But that's the way it tends to show up in men is Yeah. I gotta be the hero. Mm-hmm. that's in really good alignment with some of that status conversation around men. So, you know, in violent studies that I remember training in for during my bystander stuff is men react to a status threat. With the same intensity that a woman reacts to violence. Hmm, And so if you're a man and you think the only way to be a man is to be the hero Mm-hmm. and somebody doesn't want it, Mm-hmm. isn't getting better the way that you want them to, it's a pretty natural response. If your frame is, I must be this role to then move to the perpetrator, like, you don't wanna see me, okay, I guess this is how we're playing, and this is where the nice guy syndrome comes in a lot of times, That's right? But I'm a nice guy. Anytime that comes outta your mouth, you're probably screwing up, right? Yeah. Because you're essentially using your personhood to deny accountability for something that you did. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and this works both ways too though, because if you're in the, in the hero rescuer mode, you may end up taking on more responsibility than you actually deserve, right? I mean, so many situations involving people are co-created, but if you're gonna take on all the responsibility and you're gonna rob other people of the accountability and feedback that they need, Mm-hmm. in involved in this stuff too, Well, and you end up being like that mother. I was gonna say, thank goodness that us as therapists are completely immune from any of this, and we never Oh, being hero rescuers. Never. It's not a primary function of most people in the field coming into the field. it's not like we created a whole field for our personality type or Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. So, hey, there, there's a call out for guys that wanna get into the helping field. If you find yourself in those rescuing patterns, maybe do some work and then maybe become a therapist. Give it, give it somewhere to put. It's worked out great for me. It's worked out great for Eric. It's not a bad way to heal. But, but let's look at, you know, I mean, ours isn't the only profession, right? There's, you know, No, no, no. there's firefighters, there's police, there's all these people who want to be taken care of, others, and, protecting other people and that kind of thing. And, It's a great role to step into when it's aimed well and it's limited in its scope. mm-hmm. But if you then feel, uh, locked into there because maybe you grew up in a family system that caused this to get baked into your personality because someone else had all the other roles locked up, Mm-hmm. it becomes really difficult to become a victim. When you are victimized. Yeah. when you are truly victimized, when, you know, this is where you get people who break a leg and they're like, I'm just gonna walk it off. Mm-hmm. it's like, no, you're not gonna walk it off. You need to lie down and be still and let other people take care of you. Mm-hmm. so hard for people that get locked into, I gotta always be strong. And it's a big part of why, like in addition to those jobs just being dangerous. It's also why those jobs tend to have long-term continuous injury is because, you know, rather than saying like, I'm hurt, I need to step back from this and let somebody else in the team step in, Nope, we're on a call, we're on this. I need to keep showing up. I'm not gonna make somebody come and cover for me tomorrow. I'm gonna keep showing up. And lo and behold, this injury that could have been treated is now a long-term problem for the rest of your life. That's right. That's right. Yeah. and this is not just physical injuries too, as we Mm-hmm. Right. You, you get to you work with folks who are in some of these professions, you know, firefighters and whatnot, and they're able to kind of hold all the trauma at bay until they get They can't. And then all the trauma shows up, Mm-hmm. process it. And this is when we get into the higher rates of suicide Mm-hmm. these professions, Mm-hmm. people have just stuffed the trauma for decades and that's typically when I see them. Mm-hmm. right. That's typically when I see them. It's either they're smart enough when they start. We're getting more and more probies. The guys that go into firefighting their first year start therapy right away, which is great.'cause then we can give 'em tools and equipment on how to handle the things they see and the things that happen. Mm-hmm. But the next kind of common time is when a firefighter or a cop has a kid and then all of a sudden all those kid calls that they've been running for the last few years land on them. Oh yeah. Or just like you're describing, I've had to hold it together to be on the job. I've stepped back from being the one on the job. I'm on a desk and now all that process that hasn't been done is waiting. Mm-hmm. Yeah. it's, and it's not quiet. Mm. No. And to, well, and that's why the work that we did res responders strong out here in Colorado was so pivotal of getting those guys that knowledge and that in that read in there. I really hope more states start to work with them on that. I guess kind of, kind of to put a bow on the large amount of trauma modeling and different discussions we've had, if there was a tool that everybody had early in life around some of these dynamics you've described that would help them be better, what's that tool? What could somebody go find a video on or find a book on that would kinda immediately help them with some of these things? Hmm. First one that comes to mind. Yeah. I don't, well finding a way to overcome that programming around emotions. Oh, I'm remembering something we talked about earlier. Mm-hmm. I It's a free app. a, there's a free amp. I wanna throw out a, a term that people may or may not have heard. It's called alexathymia. And that complicated 50 cent word means, to name your feelings, and there's a lot of reasons why people are un unable to name their feelings. Well, there's this cool app called How We Feel That is Free. I believe it's available on all platforms. I have it on Android. And you click on it and you do a check-in, and then it gives you four options to start with. It says I'm feeling high energy, unpleasant. I'm feeling high energy, pleasant. I'm feeling low energy, unpleasant. I'm feeling low energy, pleasant. You click on one of those, let's say I'm right now feeling high energy, pleasant, then it has a whole nother list to choose from here to drill down. Well, am I feeling eager, enthusiastic, upbeat, alive, focused, playful, delighted, this kind of thing. Mm-hmm. helps you give some word to how you're feeling. Yeah. also then do a little journaling in there. It has a little AI in there that'll prompt you back based on what you said. so it's a really great tool to begin to your power Mm-hmm. with and have some of that self empathy. Yes. we can't connect without empathy. And so if you don't have self empathy, it gets harder and harder to connect. So tools like that are fantastic for anybody to use, but especially guys, because we've been so raised without the knowledge of that, Mm-hmm. that having a machine that's not judging you walk you through some process works out pretty good. Yeah. So I, I think that's a, I think that's a great tool to pick up. Um, a simple tool, I'd say that, but, you know, more, the broader, the first thing that came to mind, honestly when you asked that question is connection. yeah. I can't, Yeah. Yeah. stress that enough, finding more and better ways to connect, and I don't care what it is, right? Like I, a lot of times with my clients, I will, recommend that they just find a club of some kind. Just, you know, I, I don't care if you're into Scrabble or Cross Stitch or whatever it is, you're into, there's a But get around people doing what you like. doing what you like. And if it's, and you know, if the the group isn't there, then form one, you Mm-hmm. what through your, if you belong to a church or some other kind of community group, or you can get on something like meetup.com or there's discord groups or all kinds of different things where you can connect with other people. And I'm gonna throw out my bias here in person. Yeah, use. Well, and that's what the, that's what all the recommendations by people that are really studying how we use social media is we overuse it and we use it for the wrong things. But it's a tool that we're gonna have. As long as you're using your social media to build community and connection where you are seeing people and doing things with people, you're doing okay. But it's that doom scrolling. It's that without the personal friction that happens when you're in the room with somebody, Mm-hmm. easy for it to drop into social se, social signaling, exclusion, and isolation, even though you're in a room full of people supposedly talking. Right? Yep. So, man. Well, we're running outta time, we so I want you, we are, we, you got another 10 minutes before I lose you? Okay. That's true. Yep. I So, here, I want to give, the audience a chance to learn a little bit more from your story directly Mm-hmm. as you are a man I admire and a man I care deeply about. And I think your story is wonderful. So I'm really happy that we get to share some of it. right back at Uh, thanks man. What is a truth about masculinity that you learned before you were 12? That remains true today. Okay. And I appreciate that you gave me this question before we met so I could think about it for a minute. Mm-hmm. I learned from my dad that masculinity can be gentle and nurturing. Hmm. he was a generally patient, gentle and methodical man. you know, our relationship was fraud at times. He had a lot of German stoicism as part of his character. So he was a man of exceedingly few words, he also took really good care of my mother of our house, our cars, the yard, the garden. him seeing him patiently weeding the garden many times or taking meticulous care of the roses at the front of the house that he was so proud of and my mom loved as well. And so, Hmm So this is how he cared for, was in this gentle, nurturing way, mm-hmm. that was something I learned that I took with me, and that is I'm happy with and proud of. Yeah. Well, and I think that's the way, like we don't all have to be incredibly emotive to show that we care and that we're nurturing those actions that we take to take care of people. As long as we're paying attention to how they're impacting them, Mm-hmm. and we're really doing it to be connected, that's still masculine, that's still connected. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful, man. I'm glad your old man gave you that. Thank you. That was, that was definitely a gift that I'm happy that I got from him. Mm-hmm. All right, man. Next one is tell us about a time where your pursuit of manhood hurt you. Okay. So I don't know how much of this is pursuit as such, but I, I wanna reflect on a time I remember all too well was in the gym locker room in middle school. I. Hmm. right now, just hearing that phrase I think everybody's butthole, just puckered. Pretty much right. And so for anyone who hasn't been in one of those environments, everyone filled out at different rates in terms of their physical masculine attributes like their body, hearing their muscles and so on, depending on, you know, who they were and how old they were. And the older boys especially, the more developed ones, especially the jocks who had been held back for one reason or another, used to like to lord their greater masculinity or apparent masculinity, right. In Mm-hmm. development over the less developed boys. I remember being the subject of various kinds of bullying, the wet towel whip, all Mm-hmm. right? And I Um, very much like one of those chest pounding dudes. Not to, you know, they can be themselves and they can appreciate them, but I was never one of them. I was a lot more of a kind of a emo kid. And so I got bullied a lot by the jock types. We're trying to assert their dominance in the pecking order mm-hmm. And so, and it's, it's interesting because as I think about that and asserting dominance and pecking order and all that, like, it, there's a irony to to that, to me now, because for me, in my life and in my communities that I'm in and stuff like that, people talk to me about that. I seem confident and dominant and whatever. And, you know, people look to me, some of that is cultural conditioning, I'm just gonna say Mm-hmm. privilege and whatnot. But I've never tried to, dominance or anything Mm-hmm. I've never like worked toward dominance or pursued it, as you say. Mm-hmm. yet, you know, having gone through some of these other experiences where there's this direct competition for it, I never picked up on that and yet I somehow have embodied it in my right. So that's the kind of weird thing, but the experience of. Sort of wanting or trying to yearning to be masculine in the way that Mm-hmm. were, was hurtful because I felt I wasn't, and I didn't measure up and I wasn't enough back then. And it wasn't until I did feel all those things, you know, Mm-hmm. and my own work and my own therapy and my own general developmental growth Mm-hmm. able to kind of recapture that feeling of being enough as a man. Mm-hmm. And so that, that bullying that you experienced, you saw that lack in not being able to chase it, right? Because you can't decide when you're gonna get chest hair and have your growth spurt, Mm-hmm. but wanting that, it sounds like it put kind of a victim mentality on your forehead because you're like, I can't be in this space. I don't have those things, Mm-hmm. probably increased the bullying That's right. Yeah. I look man. Mm-hmm. Blood in the water the sharks. Yeah. I don't, I don't know many guys that can't relate to that a little bit in middle school at some point. Right. At least not our age. that's right. Oh, man. Yeah. let's go out on a happier note. tell us about a time where the pursuit of your masculinity empowered you. I. great. so I will say, that some of my proudest moments as a masculine person, I'd say have to do with fatherhood, Hmm. with protectiveness, and with nurturing. Mm-hmm. And I like helping other people around me feel safe and cared for, feminine persons or less masculine persons Mm-hmm. persons who seem more vulnerable than Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. way or another. I like making sure my daughter's well cared for and my spouse the people that are under my care professionally. had a client recently tell me that they regard me as a surrogate father figure, Mm-hmm. and I found myself kinda swelling with pride about that. Like, that Yeah. good. I'm happy I can help this person feel safe and cared Mm-hmm. that I hope for them to internalize over time. Right. Yeah. get to internalize what that feels like and be able to embody it themselves regardless of their gender. Yeah. get to feel that sense of you know, a, a strong person being there for them and taking care of them and that they can be that for themselves. Yeah.. When it's hard to be that for yourself until you've had somebody show you what it feels like and how to do it. Exactly. Right. it makes a lot of sense to me that your daddy energy comes into the room. As a therapist, I am completely unsurprised., , there's at least three different modalities that operate from the idea that a therapist is often a replacement parental figure in those moments. Right. I can't name 'em all off the top of my head, but neither. it makes sense to me that that brought you here Mm-hmm. it's why so many of us refer to you and why so many of us in the community love having you as part of it. So I'm really glad you had that part. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I, you know, I just, I just want to add, like, I, my view is, I think that's what our power is for, Mm-hmm. right? Is to be able to kind of be that for our communities, for our people, um, A nurturing protector. right, and not to say that we can't revel in our power, in our ambition, and even be selfish when we need to, to get what we need as long as we're not losing sight of or violating that sense of care and protection that we're Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that's wonderfully said and I'll think we'll let that be the end, man. Thanks for coming on. Absolutely. Tim, thanks so much again. I'm very honored and pleased that you invited me and hope I didn't run off of the mouth too much, but this, I'm clearly passionate about the subject, so I, I learned a lot on, I imagine the listeners have as well, man. I appreciate you. Absolutely. If something in this conversation hit you, don't just sit with it, name it, write it down, talk to somebody. Get the resources you need to get better and become the men that you want to be.. . You don't have to fix it all today, but it can be a start. You can't keep pretending that the pain isn't there and it isn't impacting you. If this conversation helped you, please make sure to share it with somebody else who it might help so we can spread the word and spread the resource. We're gonna keep having these conversations. We're gonna keep finding other clinicians and other resources to help men help themselves and help those who love men, help them heal. Thank you so much for being part of the conversation, and I look forward to seeing you in our next episode