Episode Summary

Barrett Williams (00:00.054) In a traumatic situation, I was so busy trying to survive that I couldn't process what was happening in the moment. Your experience is shattered are 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. So 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 Blommel, 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. 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'm 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. Barrett Williams (02:16.95) Right. And so, you know, I think Bessel Vanderkook 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 you, you know, 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, they hang out in short-term memory for a long, long time, and the whole time they're there, they produce symptoms. 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? 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, it 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 are barriers, right? There are barriers, right? You and I both interned at 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 handle trauma. And I think as therapists, we're stepping into a lot of that space since there isn't this public space, this shared space. Barrett Williams (04:39.33) We're so individualistic that a lot of this needs to be done in private space. That's right. Good. But I I think acknowledging the distinction on like how we're programmed to do this and how we don't have that and why tr like going to therapy for traumas is so key and important. Hopefully it'll help some of the guys that maybe hear this be okay coming into that space and to do that. Because 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. It's to not give access to our feelings. It's associated with weakness. It's associated with femininity, for instance. You know, you're not masculine enough. 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 it in our culture. But you you need to be able to feel the feelings in order to get the processing done. And if you are, you know, st strangers to your feelings, that's gonna be tough. You gotta do that work first to get there. Yeah. Yeah, and it's it's interesting too, because it's not you know when we talk about feelings in this context context around trauma. I think a lot of guys picture it like two women talking in a drama with like big snop bubbles, tears, big catharsis. 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, and let me give you another thing too. Because we're so taught to be so distant from our feelings. So many of us have never really had the experience of feeling them safely. We've never had the experience of feeling the feeling come on, rise in intensity, plateau in intensity, and then go back down. Many times people feel that rise in intensity and they panic because they 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. Barrett Williams (07:01.602) And they don't know it's gonna come back down because nobody has sat with them to have a feeling. 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. We've essentially broken out the provider role so explicitly, all the way from World War Two 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. But by not having boys around fathers to learn by watching, all 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 and stoicism as aspects of gender role training. And then the idea that you would sit with somebody to have a feeling is what? That's alien, right? and and here's the 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 therapist. I believe that the only way we can truly resolve trauma is with someone else. And here's why. When 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? Yeah, 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. And without somebody else but by your side, our nervous systems just aren't programmed to let us do that. I think that kind of that ideal carries us a little bit forward into the next question that I wanted to ask you of. Barrett Williams (09:27.16) How do men, women and non vi binary folks differ in common expression of traumatic symptoms? And I think this is where the isolation of American men is exacerbating male trauma. Yeah. You know, women women at least have a community impact and a socialization to share things, to share pain, to talk. And men and not having that, when we are experiencing 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. That word weak is anathema to men, right? Like and vulnerable is a s synonym. Of a week, and that's just not something that's in the code. I think the kind of primary experience doesn't really differ among anybody. 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, like the tendency of some groups to be more apt to be collectivist and support one another, and others to isolate. And, you know, that's also going to vary idiosyncratically by people, by geography, by a 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 going forward. 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 individuals' experiences are going to be what an individual's experience is. That's right. But I think it's helpful to identify how these things come out so that if somebody's loved one is listening and they don't understand how somebody's hurting, but they're seeing some of these things. Yeah. It helps them start a conversation. Yeah. Right. Yep. And and so like one of them that I see pretty regularly in my practice is that protective anger. I think men are more prone to protective anger when they've been traumatized. Where you feel unsafe Barrett Williams (11:50.188) 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. Yep. And protect the people around you. And it goes awry. Because you're not you're not in your right mind. That's right. So you bodyguard a pan, then you're just gonna act like a bouncer. All right. And I see that a lot more with my masculine clients than the than 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 their individual culture of one and all that stuff, right? I think Yuri Bonfernbrenner's, 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 Bronfenbrenner has the I'm gonna 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 chronosphere, meaning what part what point in the timeline are you? You know, to where like okay, if you're a single black woman mother in nineteen fifty versus a single black woman mother today, well things are gonna be a little different. Things are decayed. differences are decreasing. But anyway, let's talk about that. And yeah, but but that's what I'm talking about there, right? So everyone 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 not everyone had. But there's also all these other shared experiences you had from being in the same country, same culture and that kind of thing. Well and we're we go crazy by culture, right? So that of course is going to 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 r 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 level. Absolutely. Yeah. One one way or the other. Something I want to throw out there too. You talk about differences in experiencing trauma. I just want to notice that my trans people are experiencing trauma differently right now because they're feeling so wildly excluded from Barrett Williams (14:09.698) power and by power. And so, you know, you know, to where there there had been some sense of love and acceptance that people were beginning to feel, you know, that just got yanked out from under them. And so that it I think it's gonna be a lot easier, unfortunately, for people to have for trans people have worse trauma symptoms now because of that feeling of where am I ever going to be safe? Well, and they're just carrying like whenever you're talking about systems of oppression adding to trauma, right? Where you're talking about like a police state and young men have just having to deal with being traumatized by armed people, 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. And I 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. 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 want to make that reach. I was gonna compare it to The justice system with men versus women. And you know, both genders engaged with the tr 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. And we have to kind of 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. And 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. Barrett Williams (16:28.694) 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 that and they're like, Why should I have sympathy for people who are you know what I mean, treated in that way? That's small potatoes compared to the way I've been put down. but I guess the thing I would say back to someone without objection is that as feminists have long understood patriarchy hurts everybody. Everyone. Yeah. You know? And so and this is how some of these systems get created, promulgated, 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 ten year old boy didn't do that to you twenty years ago. So by punishing this boy for that experience based on what his fathers and grandfathers did, that's out of proportion and it's perpetuating a cycle. Yeah. In two, we would love it if everybody could just be super empathetic and do hard things for other people all the time. In my experience, when you're talking about a mass of people, that's not how change occurs. You've got to sell people on this is also good for you. Even if it's You don't want to be the people that do this. Right. Like sometimes that's all you get is you don't want to be the people doing this. You don't want to look at yourself in the mirror now that you know this is happening and be the person that's doing this. Yeah. Yeah. But by reminding everybody that the patriarchy is a thing, the systems of oppression are real and they have fundamentally hurt men in dozens and dozens of ways. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to help bring a lot more guys on board. Yeah. Fair, fair. So that was a nice little social justice run on how trauma is expressed via gender. Right? Yeah. Well, I feel like I want to, if you're okay with this, come back around to trauma resolution and what that would look like in our culture. Right. I gave that kind of vision of what it would look like in a more collectivist situation. so I'll just Barrett Williams (18:49.814) You know, give you my I have a a nerdy way of looking at it, which I call emotional time travel because I'm a nerd, as you know. It's a sci fi and stuff. But this is this is also standing on the shoulders of giants and piecing together stuff from, you know, Bessel Vanderkolk and so many and I feel bad that I'm not thinking of her name. Trauma and I'm talking about. Well you just send it to and I'll I'll put it over the screen. Wait, wait, wait, I got it, they got it. Trauma on recovery by Judith Herman. There we Judith Herman and her Her important work and many other giants. Fundamental, right? A a real amazing reinterpretation of Freudian theory and the errors that were made based on patriarchal system. Anyway, we can go into that whole nother thing. But standing on the shoulders of giants like that, here is 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 present, or a safer one where we have, you know, at least the dyad of the therapist and the client, and we do whatever we need to do to create as much safety as possible. Then 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 usually that involves feeling the feels, okay, whether 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 so 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 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. Barrett Williams (21:07.082) 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, that they come in and they're expected to just dump it out without safety. And 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 are like, Yeah, my therapist broke down crying and I had to take care of her when I told her the story. And so I stopped going to therapy because 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 or just about anyone, period. Here there's a really useful tool I learned about in terms of managing the differences between compassion and empathy. There's a way to avoid what you just described as someone who is trying to be there for someone who is in trauma. And there's actually some solid research about this. The there's differences in empathy and compassion. Empathy is feeling with that means feeling the same thing as or as close as possible as the other person. And compassion is feeling Four, I want to help you that sucks whatever you have gone through and I want to be there for you. And it's the difference between kind of like being in the pit with somebody versus being out of the pit and holding a rope for them to climb up, right? Hundred percent. And and you need some empathy to be able to 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 And they have elicited empathy, and they have elicited compassion, and they notice that the folks where they elicited empathy, the pain centers of their brain lit up because they're feeling the pain of the other person. And when they elicit compassion, I want to you know help you, I want to be there for you, it actually elicits the reward centers of the brain. So this is how those of us who have been in the trauma biz for a while can do it. Right? Barrett Williams (23:31.362) This is why we're dead. 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 couples problem of the more masculine partner tending to be the fixer instead of the feeler. I I gotta tell you that my personal experience in doing c couple and 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 to be outcome focused and not process focused. Process focused. All right. Right. Like 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 belonged to. One of the members has talked about it. And we talk about the four S's. Have I told you about this before? No, go for it. And couples work? Okay. So the four S 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 one is 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? You know, kind of thing. Mm-hmm. Do you need support, which is exactly like silence, but man, that sucks. I'm so sorry. You know, supportive words to kind of 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? And then the last one is kind of more more fun, like it's you know, or maybe do 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. Damn right. So I I love that. And it it kind of lines up with, and I th I can't remember whether it was you or Melody that I took this from, but I hand it to almost every client in a couple that kind of struggles with those dynamics is if you don't know what to do in the moment, like you're you see your person struggling, am I helping or listening? 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. Barrett Williams (25:50.754) 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. Because 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 not outcome focused. Right? Like they spend day after day after day doing nothing but fixing. They're really good at it. It's a great skill set to have. Right? They engineer their way out of every problem, right? And so someone sh sh shares a problem and they want to engineer their way out of it, you know? And of course they do. Of course they do. They get pay-couple money to do that. Yeah, we fall back on what we're good at, right? Yeah. It's just sometimes I think though the way to intimacy is to be willing to do the things that you aren't classically good at. Mm-hmm. To 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. 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 fourables, see them do some things, see them mess up some things, see them laud 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. Yeah. Yeah. 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. Well, and yeah, since I mean we're straying into territory of, you know, couples, and I want to say that obviously trauma plays into relationships a lot. How can it not? But you talking about that also brings up, you know, the the trauma of having been raised male and being isolated from your actively isolated from your own emotions, your own physiological reactions. Barrett Williams (28:12.878) Yeah. And so then someone, you know, your partner is across from you and asking you to sit with them and their feelings and you're like, the fuck? I don't know how to do this. I haven't sat with my own feelings. How do you what are you asking me to do? You know, because 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 big feel. It's like they the whole thing is shove it aside until later, you know. And later never comes until Yeah. You know. Well and I also think there's also a kind of disregard around empathy and how men describe feelings that's bot that's begin bother me more and more. If you if you see two guys talking about a breakup, one guy won't use emotional language to talk about it. It'll she ripped my heart out. And they'll use these phrases, and that's not incorrect. huh. Right? We we need to stop kind of pathologizing. Kind of kinetic physical language on emotional response as though it is not enough. Instead, we need to incorporate it into the conversation. Okay. Yeah. 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 from guys because they a lot of them can describe like this is what's physically happening to me. 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. You know, I I ask a person how they feel, I don't know. Mm-hmm. 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, and I notice that my breath is coming up a little short. Okay. All right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Under what circumstances does that happen? Okay. Yeah, one of the one of the big ones that that blew my mind and it's a story I tend to share with clients because when we were talking about the physical response to various emotional states and how that's in our ape brain, right? That's under our 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. Barrett Williams (30:39.214) And so for me, when I'm really angry, I clench my fist and my jaw because that's what you do in like your ape brain. Like I'm angry, I might fight, let's go. Right? Yeah, yeah. When I'm feeling ashamed, I clench my jaw, but my hands are relaxed. interesting. Okay. Yeah. And it's that shame and embarrassment, that like gulp effect, right? That like, like that that kind of that cringe that we're feeling about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And because I'd never paid attention and no one like no one gave me that language. There were so many times where I'd be shamed or I felt shamed or something like that and then responded with anger 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. Yeah. Angry, happy, horny. Right. Exactly. And occasionally goofy if it's with your kids. Or maybe your friend's kids. Maybe. Yeah. If you're that guy. You can be that guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Love that guy. Okay. So talking about this is causing me to want to nerd out for just a half a second on emotions. This is why you love me, right? Because I read everything. Yeah. Okay. All right, good. Bring it on, nerd. So I'm thinking right now about the a book by Lisa Feldman 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 its 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. All of it. You know, to where to to where there's been all this like cross-cultural research where they say, yeah, this is a universal emotion. Well that's because they had multiple choice on the test. Yeah. And they did not allow the people from the target culture to come up with the answers for what they're feeling. Right. And we see this in there's these words that are Barrett Williams (33:01.164) Meant to be somehow untranslatable between languages. I'm thinking of the is it the Swedish word hoog? That's like that H Y with an umlaut G G E, which is some species of like, you know, contented happiness and like when you're with a warm tea in a book or this kind of thing. Okay, yes. Yes. That one. Right. And I I having grown up bilingual in German, I know that there's a similar word called Gmütlichkeit in German, which is also similarly difficult to translate, but it's you know it it's it's all 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. Right. And of course that's a highly that description is highly culturally embedded. But 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. You know, the cashier, whatever you know, goes on break. Like, my God. I think the distinction there is the purpose of like the front end acknowledgement of that feeling of when brings emotional into the cognitive. So rather than this analytical, like I'm justifying a story and telling you point by point what happened, I'm trying to relate to you what something felt like and finding the path to that and the language cues for that is going to be pivotal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, so this is well, wasn't it go ahead? I I forget, but isn't 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, yeah. Like white American college students. 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, or something like that. Sure. And right. And so in the first chapter, he talks about how for the longest time researchers believe that facial recognition Barrett Williams (35:17.388) was only done with on one half of the brain, that only one half of the brain was responsible for it. And 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. And 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 going to be good at some things and bad at others and to accept that and move through it. Like 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 like 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 how to read faces. Yeah, right. Like just how to get around in the world. and I and I like I had that response the first time I heard that 'cause I know the study you're talking about. I like, we're not that bad. Like, 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 s on the autism spectrum. Right. Relative to ability to kind of read social cues, read faces, read emotions, that kind of thing. And there may be some relationship 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. And if you're going from a purely capitalistic, purely entrepreneurial lens, you can't have much empathy. Because 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 further and to 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 wanna I wanna grind one little axe I have on this, if I may. Barrett Williams (37:37.384) on 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. You know, you're you're 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. It is impossible for any human being to make any decision without emotion. There's no such thing. The question is which emotions are you using? Are you using brutality? Contempt? Are you using, you know, you know, obliviousness? Are you using are are you using like 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? The the feeling you get when you're working on a hard problem to find a solution. 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. But you're right. The the whole idea, and I get so many guys out of 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 v 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 what me saying that it's impossible to to do anything without emotion, I remind them that the the Latin root of emotion is the same as motivation or motive. You can't do anything without a motive. And if you have a motive, you have an emotion. That's just how it works. Yeah, and I think that numbness is really hurting guys. Like they did that study around cardiology where 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. But essentially, stress is good. 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. Gets you out of bed. Burnout is not stress. Overwhelmed is not stressed. Anxious is not stressed. Barrett Williams (39:57.814) And so what they did by telling like a generation of boomers that, like, my God, you've got heart disease, you can't stress anymore, you're gonna die. It made them fearful every time they experience stress. 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, we shorten their lifespans. Completely on accident, right? These were good doctors trying to help people, doing their best with the information they're head. 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 re-established 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 is as we say, so many men and masculine folks have been injured by this notion that you need to not feel and you need 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. You know, you're gonna have that base affect. Your body is gonna do a thing with something that happens. You're gonna feel that heart rip out of your chest. You're gonna feel, 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 a tool, right? It it is motivating you. It is pushing you in a direction. Are you going to let it push you like a, you know, like the ring on the nose of a bull? Are you going to let it yank you around? Or are you going to actually own it and work with it? That's what I'm suggesting. And I think that fits well within a positive masculine paradigm. Barrett Williams (42:14.456) Well, and I think it's also p imperative for recovering from and recognizing trauma. Here, here. The the locking down of the trauma response makes sense. Right. If you don't know what else to do, you gotta keep your shit together. Mm-hmm. That's right. And the problem 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. Well 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. That 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, if there's a part of you that is holding those shattered experiences we're talking about and is being in charge of asking you to process them, one of the ways it will try to get you to process them is to get you to act them out. Yeah. And we see this a lot in relationships, right? Where people will act out the old trauma from their past. And will engage in unintentional psychodrama, you know, 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 get you to work it out. And if it can't do it, you know, sort of imaginationally or whatever you want to call it, like that, or something 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. And 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 want to do. Or you have other options. Well, 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 Zeitgeist 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 and process. Barrett Williams (44:32.108) 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 because it's like family. Yeah. Yeah. Well injuries from family of origin. Yeah. So like is is that like that's my very simple understanding of trauma bonding. And I know that y 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. And 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. And we ask ourselves, why are they staying with this abusive partner that 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. And some of it If we're unpacking trauma bonding, some of this is attachment and 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 get a handle 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 that kind of thing about why that happens. So that's one 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 and they've got some kind of you know what I've called psychodrama. And and if if and no one knows what that means, there's a number of different definitions, but the way I'm using it right now is Barrett Williams (46:44.826) basically replaying a drama that happened when you were young or when you were traumatized. Right. You're go you're reenacting the steps of the dance or the the steps of 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 seem very familiar, as we've just said, then they'll get together and th it'll be very hard for them to come apart because those parts of them that are trying to get the trauma to process are pushing them together. Like, no, I'm not gonna let you out of this until you figure this shit out right now. And unfortunately, if people are doing 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, where that's 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, you understand me. You accept that you you believe me about my story. I feel so whole and seen. And there is some truth to when someone shares an experience with you, they have a deeper understanding of it than someone who hasn't. And it also makes it a lot easier to drown in the pool together. Okay, so trauma bonding, unpacking it. So I brought up attachment and attachment theory as a real quick and dirty attachment theory talks about the style in which we bond emotionally with other people based on what happened largely in the first year of our life. If 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. That's or I'm gonna make enough noise until they have to. So that is that's more like the I would say when the anxious attachment, right? Barrett Williams (49:06.57) The anxious attachment is the answer 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 I can trust people, I can trust the world to give me 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 that kind of flip-flops. And that's usually when someone has a parent that is truly unpredictable, maybe has a severe mental illness or this kind of thing. So there's that approach avoidance. I need you, but I'm scared of you. Need you, but 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 and great when it happens. It's 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 types, which is you know, the avoidant, the anxious, or the disorganized. If you're with somebody 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. And doing that. And doing that. So what becomes pretty difficult and what is more in that trauma bonding realm is when you have an anxious with an avoidant. And what happens there, right, and that happens very frequently. And in fact, 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. How do I finally get them to pay attention to me? For instance. man, they'll keep chasing me. This must be okay. Right? So then 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. Barrett Williams (51:26.114) Well, 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. Exactly. Those attachment wounds, right? Mm-hmm. I feel I I need to 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 it was set in that first year. So I just I want to hasten to add that so people don't think it's it's deterministic. Yeah, 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, no. okay. You can get better? Okay. Okay, yeah. I want to 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 as someone who's helping an insecure person 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. Are ready for this? Sure. All right. We're gonna get into the Cartman drama triangle and the the next evolution of that, which is the traumatic transference roles. So Cartman first discovered what we now call triangulation. Right. So he noticed that let's say there's two people that are having a conflict and you know they're One of them 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 ass. And so then what they do is they find another person to try to be the rescuer to sort of you know adjudicate who is who in this case. And I like using the example of the AITA on Reddit. You know, this subreddit called AITA. That that's an acronym for MI the. yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good one. Right. And it's where it's where people triangulate in the entire internet to try to who's right and who's wrong, right? And and they like they want to adjudicate this so that put it in 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 you know, what happens if you find the the one who's wrong? Is that gonna promote connection? Barrett Williams (53:50.296) Like is that gonna bring you closer or is that gonna take one person and give them the black dot of shame and then they're gonna go off and be ashamed in the corner and there's no connection? Right? So this is like this is not ideal. This is not what we're trying to do. We're not trying to actually find who the jerk is here. Yeah. Right? 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 like we have this tendency to want to do this as as creatures. Well, and just generally the way that I frame it with folks is when you feel like your actions can't impact you, you fall into one of these roles. If 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. You know, 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 tenth of a second? The lady's brain does a cast of characters to maximize her survival. 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 or they might need later need some feedback. The people off to the side recording this on their cell phones are 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 is a potential rescuer. I can move toward them. So all this happens like boom, tenth of a second. Our brain does this to maximize our survival. Great system. So far, so good. Right. 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, where the rotation of roles does not happen naturally. Barrett Williams (56:09.058) 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. Like if you know, going back to there's a substance use disorder, they have victim locked up tight. Nobody 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 going to be the bystander who's like, I'm going to stay a thousand miles away from this bullshit. You all do that over there. I'm going to be over here. And then there's the perpetrator role who's like, you're not going to pay attention to me. How about I knock over a 7-Eleven? Okay, now you're going to pay attention to me, aren't you? Right? Or they're the family truth teller who's going to tell it. Like it is, even if it hurts. Right. Right. Right. So so this is where it gets problematic. 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. 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 fret the threat flag and put it back down in the database. Right. So, 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 doesn't have to be right. But the brain still wants to know, how could I have been in this victim role. What it 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 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. Barrett Williams (58:26.646) 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 is because 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 it? 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 therapy when they're trying to resolve trauma. And so that's that's where that role came from. That's the question I hear a lot from people that were hurt as kids. Right. Right. Yeah. Unfortunately. Then strangely enough you would think, well, why would the rescuer or hero role ever have any problem there? What isn't that a great thing, you know? But where where I get this is let's say there's a parent who snatches their kid away from an oncoming car at the last second. Now 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 drastic versions of the same thing, right? When that if there's a trauma and you were the rescuer, well now do I have to always be strong? And this is where we get into masculinity. A lot, right? Masculinity has this built in as a feature, not a bug, or maybe it's a bug, not a feature, yeah. hard to say, right? Is that I always need to be strong to be the rescuer. That kind of thing. 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. And this is why there's a strong tendency for there to be some codependence then in in 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 like I gotta be the hero. Well, and that's in really good alignment with some of that status conversation around men. So in violence studies that I remember training on for during my bystander stuff is men react to a status threat with the same intensity that a woman reacts to violence. And so if you're a man and you think the only way to be a man is to be the hero, Barrett Williams (01:00:50.962) And somebody doesn't want it. Somebody 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 want to 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 out of your mouth, you're probably screwing up. Right? Yeah, 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 y you're gonna rob other people of the accountability and feedback that they need. in involved in this stuff too. Thank goodness by the way that us I was gonna say thank goodness that us as therapists are completely immune from any of this and we never have to worry about 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 anything. Yeah. So hey that there's a call out for guys that want to 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, there's no physicians, there's firefighters, there's police, there's all these people who want to be taking 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 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, then it becomes really difficult to become a victim when you are victimized. It becomes 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. You know, 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. Barrett Williams (01:03:12.086) And that's so hard for people that get locked into I gotta always be strong. Well, 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 on 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. And and this is not just physical injuries, too, as we know. Right? You y 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 to a desk job and then all the trauma shows up. And now they gotta process it. And this is when we get into the higher rates of suicide among these professions because people have just stuffed the trauma for decades sometimes when they're coming crashing in. 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 because then we can give them tools and equipment on how to handle the things they see and the things that happen. 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. yeah. 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. And it's and it's not quiet. And it's very anxious stuff. Well, and that's why the work that we did was responder strong out here in Colorado is 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 described that would help them be better, what's that tool? What could somebody go find a video on? Barrett Williams (01:05:32.396) Or find a book on that would kind of immediately help them with some of these things. Hmm. First one that comes to mind. Yeah. I don't have well, finding a way to overcome that programming around emotions. I'm remembering something we talked about earlier. There's I wanna I want to throw out a there's a free app. I want to throw out a a term that people may or may not have heard. It's called alexithymia. And that complicated 50 cent word means Unable to name your feelings. And there's a lot of reasons why people are 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. And 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. And it helps you give some word to how you're feeling. You can 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. Access your power with regard to your motivation. Yes. Yeah, we can't 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, that having a machine that's not judging you walk you through some process works out pretty good. Yeah. So I think that's a I think that's a great tool to pick up. So in terms of that being just a simple tool, I'd say that, but you know, the more the broader the first thing that came to mind, honestly, when you ask that question is connection. You know, I can't I really can't 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. Barrett Williams (01:07:52.97) or whatever it is you're into, there's a club out there. 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 know, and with 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 that's that doom scrolling, it's that without the personal friction that happens when you're in the room with somebody. It's very easy for it to drop into social sea social signaling, exclusion, and isolation, even though you're in a room full of people supposedly talking. Right. Yep. So we'll we're running out time. We are so I want you we are. We you've got another ten minutes before I lose you. Okay, that's true. Yeah, I do go. So let's get out of here, Sam. 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 you, buddy. Thanks, man. What is a truth about masculinity that you learned before you were twelve that remains true today? Okay. I appreciate that you gave me this question before we met so I could think about it for a minute. I learned from my dad that masculinity can be gentle and nurturing. He he was a generally patient, gentle, and methodical man. you know, our relationship was fraught at times. He had a lot of German stoicism as part of his character, so he was a man of exceedingly few words, but he also took really good care of my mother, of our house, our cars, the yard, the garden. I remember 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. Barrett Williams (01:10:06.282) And my mom loved as well. And so right. So this is how he cared for was in this gentle nurturing way. And 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 kick 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, it'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. Yeah. 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 want to reflect on a time I remember all too well was in the gym locker room in middle school. How many people are cringing 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 hair and 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 terms of their physical development over the less developed boys. And I remember being the subject of various kinds of bullying, the wet towel whip, all that kind of thing. Right. And I was never very much like one of those chest pounding dudes. Not that 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 an emo kid, and so I got bullied a lot by the jock types. We're trying to assert their dominance in the pecking order. And so and it's it's interesting because even as I think about that and asserting dominance and pecking order and all that. Barrett Williams (01:12:13.068) 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, right? But I've never tried to have dominance or anything like that. I've never like worked toward dominance or pursued it as you say. And 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 years. Right. So that's the kind of weird thing. But the experience of sort of wanting or kind of yearning to be masculine in the way that some of these others 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, for other reasons and my own work and my own therapy and my own just general developmental growth that I was 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 spurred. Mm-hmm. Right. 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, which probably increased the bullying. That's right. Yeah, I look more like a target. Right. Blood in the water for 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. that's right. Let's go out on a happier note. Tell us about a time where the pursuit of your masculinity empowered you. Great. So I will say that some of my proudest moments as a masculine person, I'd say, have to do with fatherhood, with protectiveness and with nurturing. And I like helping other people around me feel safe and cared for, especially feminine persons or less masculine persons, or persons who seem more vulnerable than myself, one way or another. I like Barrett Williams (01:14:35.906) Making sure my daughter's well cared for and my spouse and the people that are under my care professionally. I had a client recently tell me that they regard me as a surrogate father figure. And I found myself kind of swelling with pride about that. Like that felt really good. I'm happy I can help this person feel safe and cared for in a way that I hope for them to internalize over time. Yeah. Right? That they get to internalize what that feels like and be able to embody it themselves, regardless of their gender. Right. That they get to feel that sense of, you know, a s a strong person being there for them and taking care of them and that they can be that for themselves. Yeah. Well, 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 and completely unsurprised. There's at least three different modalities that operate from the idea that a therapist is off and a replacement parental figure in those moments. Right. I can't I can't name them all off the top of my head, but it makes sense to me that that brought you here and 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. Right. Is to be able to kind of be that for our communities, for our people, 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 trying to bring. Yeah. I think that's wonderfully said. And I 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 with the mouth too much. But this I'm clearly passionate about the subject, so I 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 man that you want to be. Barrett Williams (01:16:55.171) 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 going to keep having these conversations. We're going to 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.