00:00:01 Kevin

It’s a really interesting piece that you’re mentioning, Fredrik, around the idea of toxic masculinity seeping into the very space of therapy treatment.

00:00:13 Fredrik

I had a client today, and he said, I’m okay. I said, how are you doing right now? I’m okay. Okay, you’re okay. How does your body tell you that you’re okay right now? Check in with your body and just tell me what’s going on. Okay. And he’s able to do that. And his hands are sweaty. He can register that his heart’s beating fast and his shoulders are … the muscles are tensing. And then he just bursts out and laughs and like, I’m no fucking near okay. 

Toxic manly norm. To be able to look the way I look and stay still, be compassionate. It’s a good thing. It’s an icebreaker. I mean, looking the way I’m looking most of the time, most of the client, it’s. Let’s say it’s a good thing. The horror tattoos are all over the arms. No hair and the beard and so on. Some of my clients, just particularly one of them, one of the bravest boys, men, I’ve ever worked with, he told me that it was like, the second or third session, and he said, you are a copy of my abuser, his stepfather. You look like him, sound like him, almost have similar tattoos. And now we’ve been seeing each other for six months. We’ve summarized what’s been going on. Where are we at right now? And he said, being able to feel safe with you has made my relationship to men, in general, much better.

00:01:57 Rosemary

This is the Gifts of Trauma podcast. Stories of transformation and healing through Compassionate Inquiry. 

00:02:15 Kevin

So welcome to this episode of the Gifts of Trauma podcast from Compassionate Inquiry. My name is Kevin Young, and I’m here with… and please, Fredrik, tell me if I pronounce your name correctly or incorrectly… Fredrik Wretman.

00:02:32 Fredrik

Yeah. Fredrik Wretman. In Swedish.

00:02:35 Kevin

Oh, please say that again for me.

00:02:37 Fredrik

Yeah. And slow. Fredrik Wretman.

00:02:41 Kevin

Okay. Fredrik Wretman. I am here with Fredrik Wretman. Yeah, Fredrik, what I’m really curious and interested in is just you. Just you. Who you are, what you do, how you got to be doing, what you’re doing, your aspirations, your hopes, your dreams. I’m just interested in you. And I wonder, would you like to take a moment to maybe formally introduce yourself? How would you introduce yourself if you were standing up at the start of a talk or a lecture or a presentation, what would you say about yourself?

00:03:22 Fredrik

I usually say, I am Fredrik Wretman, and then I move forward to say what I do. So now I do or I work with… I do trauma therapy or compassionate inquiry together with trauma sensitive or trauma informed yoga. And I’m also a facilitator. I work with mostly professionals that work in social services or works in treatment centers and so on. And then I teach in classes for people who are studying to be like social workers or.. yeah, I don’t know the English word. Yeah. They’re going to work in treatment centers and so on. So I teach psychology and addiction and so on. That’s what I do. And outside of that, I’m a father. I have two kids, Ebot and Lovis, a boy and a girl, and my wife Sophie, out in the woods, middle large city in Sweden. Yeah. In the countryside. So that’s who I am and that’s what I do.

00:04:30 Kevin

Yeah. Thank you, Fredrik. One of the things that I noticed when I was doing a little bit of research on you, and we know each other from before. We’ve met before, but I wanted to get a little bit more detail on. The kind of things that, that, that you do and the kind of things that you get up to. And one of the things that I noticed is that you… and please let me know if you agree with this. You are a highly educated person. So, you seem to have spent a lot of time in university, a lot of time studying. I’ll read some, and then I’d love to ask you some questions around that. You speak Swedish and English, obviously, you’re speaking to us in English. Master in education, forensic psychiatry, neuropsychiatry and criminality, supervisor in psychosocial work, addiction and family network, trauma informed yoga teacher and trainer. You have knowledge on social law, moral reconation therapy, breaking the chains of trauma, transactional analysis, community reinforcement, approach, motivational interviewing, aggression, ACE aware stuff, or the ACE study. And you’re a Compassionate Inquiry practitioner as well. So you studied a lot. Tell me a little bit about the drive to study that much.

00:05:58 Fredrik

Yeah, the drive. You know, there was a heavy metal band from the 80s. They did a song called I Want to Be Somebody. Yeah, that’s the first thing that really. That’s the drive. I want to be somebody.

00:06:14 Kevin

Okay.

00:06:15 Fredrik

So that’s the drive to move forward and to be somebody and to understand things that I didn’t understand before, but mostly, to be somebody… that’s been my driver.

00:06:31 Kevin

And maybe, Fredrik, because you have a knowledge of Compassionate Inquiry, you might be aware of what the next question might be? When somebody says, I have a drive, I have a drive. I want to be somebody. Us Compassionate Inquiry people might say, aren’t you somebody already? When did you stop being somebody? Would you lean into that question a little bit for me?

00:06:58 Fredrik

Yeah. Now I can say, of course I am. It’s just, I am, and that’s okay today. Growing up, I never felt that feeling. I didn’t perceive myself to be worthy or to be somebody that counted or had a value. So for me, it’s. Yeah. The studies, always been way to be somebody. To get some value, to maybe get a diploma. Oh, I know this. And therefore I am. If I got a degree, if I did some course or class, I can have a diploma and I can show it to everyone or myself. Yeah. To be somebody. So it has to do with force, with the belief that I’m not worthy or worth less.

00:07:49 Kevin

Thank you, Fredrik. And would you… and it’s okay if you’re not. Would you be okay to talk us through? And this is. I think this is important for how you came to do what you do, but would you be okay with talking us through? When did you start to believe that you didn’t have a worth? What would be going on in a person’s life for them to believe that they were worthless or of no value? How did that come about?

00:08:24 Fredrik

Yeah, for me, In my life, in my history, it’s the belief for me came after,  traumatic, terrible things. Sexual abuse happened to me when I was, I don’t know, three, four years old. Like the implicit and explicit memory. It is like an implicit memory, but I can remember the fear. I can remember the loneliness and that no one talked about it And that I have the perception and the belief that I was being alone with it, totally alone. So that loneliness and the fear, that adds up to, for me, at least, with no value. Yeah. No value. So I had to, in different ways in my life, strive to be somebody. And like a positive strive would be to go to the university, later on in life. Yeah. And even starting Compassionate Inquiry later on. Of course, that driver was then as well. But it started with. Yeah, I shouldn’t say it started with the sexual abuse, but it started with being alone with it. And there’s story. I know my mother’s told me this story when they figured out something was wrong, because it was my grandmother’s husband who was the abuser. And she told me a story that I think she said three and a half years old. And I’m, we’re about to go to my grandmother and her husband. It’s only my mother and me, and I’m hiding under the kitchen table. And she describes me like clinching to the, clinching to the table, like, the legs of the table, just screaming and crying like an animal. Which is the words she used, not wanting to go there. So she called her, my grandmother, she called her mother. And then she asked, has he done anything bad to Frederik? Yeah, he has. And then they never talked about it. I didn’t have to go to sleep over alone again, but they never, no one ever talked about it. My mother didn’t tell my father. And in one way, I can be like retrospective, he wouldn’t be able to handle it. There would have been violent. Yeah. So it probably was a, in a way, good call not to tell him. But that not telling, not speaking about it, not doing anything with it, that also put the belief there that I’m alone. It’s scary to be alone, and I have to be worthless. And I can see, of course, that this has been a driver in my life, that man, he died when I was five, six years old. And this I can remember. And also I know my mother, my father reacted really hard or they, it caught their attention when he died. I blamed myself. It was my fault that he died. And I really can remember that. And, they didn’t understand it.  I, which we, we’ve talked about it afterwards, when I’m an adult, I really can remember. I have so much shame and blame. He died of a heart attack. And so I remember I was really scared of him, really extremely scared of him. But I can remember how sad I was when he cried. And I got one thing I got from him, except from the scars and the trauma, of course, but I got one thing. It was the Paddington, the bear. Yeah, I got a Paddington, but it was soap that you can wash your hands with, a soap and it’s with a Paddington figure in a box. And I never used it. I got it from him when I was probably around three or four years old. I’d never used it. And now I don’t know where it is, but I kept it. I’m turning 45 this year. I kept it for nine years ago when we moved into this house. I couldn’t find it, so I panicked. Where’s my Paddington soap? And that was my first. Oh, here’s something to be curious about. I’ve always had that soap. I can remember the smell. I always had it in my, in the bathroom, carrying it with me. Moving around, going to university, moving different cities. I’ve always kept the soap… Paddington soap. That was the only thing that he got me. I don’t know why I came into that story now, but, yeah, the Paddington soap really stayed with me.

00:13:02 Kevin

Thank you, Fredrik. At this point, Fredrik, I. I just want to acknowledge your honesty and authenticity. And I know these aren’t easy subjects to talk about. I also know they’re hugely important subjects to talk about. And when we come to talk about some things later on, I’m sure we’ll realize why they’re hugely important. So thank you for sharing that with me. I really noticed the… I really noticed the heaviness in my chest when you were sharing that story, and I’m very grateful that you did. Something else that I noticed as we’ve been talking and certainly as I’ve been reading some things. Is that your whole life, certainly your adult life, your career seems to have been devoted to service, to the service of others. Be that through teaching, be that through working with young people, be that working with organizations, be that yoga in prisons, maybe it’s the same answer. But I wonder what is the driver for that? Why that choice of always serving people?

00:14:15 Fredrik

I think it’s, for me, yeah, it’s the same. It’s a good way to, be somebody or to be worthy or to have some worth or to be really important. So that, yeah, that’s been the driver for studying. That’s been the driver for… of course I want to help people and of course I want to do good. But it’s a huge… Was a huge driver for me. Like, I worked 80 hours a week for a long time being the manager of a treatment center, of three treatment centers, working with clients, working with the staff, working. Was on call all the time.

00:14:51 Kevin

So would you call…Our podcast is called the Gifts of Trauma, and we can certainly see, and I’m sure we’ll talk again about your career and your academic achievements. And the gift of this trauma has been a huge desire to, if you want to call it, be someone. But it has given you multiple degrees and qualifications and different roles in your life. It has also,,, the gift of that trauma has also been that you are in deep service to other people. I wonder, though, would you be able to recognize any of the pitfalls of those gifts? So was it difficult to work 80 hours a week across three treatment centers? Was there any damage to your health? Was there any damage to your relationships? What were the pitfalls of that?

00:15:37 Fredrik

Yeah, yeah, that’s the pitfalls you can’t have. It’s impossible to have healthy, good relationships to yourself or to others. So that’s the pitfalls. Yeah, it’s really impossible to do it in a healthy, authentic way to  do some like the works of  self care. No, that wasn’t present at all. I did a lot of exercise, trained a lot. I used to be a competing wrestling record, Roman wrestling. So I’ve been a good athlete as well and. But it wasn’t healthy in that sense. It wasn’t self care. And when I shared this, I remember, remember one thing, my brother’s daughter. I think. Yeah, it’s my brother’s daughter. It was her Christianing in church 15 years more. Yeah, she’s 16. 16 years ago and I had my phone with me of course because I was on call. I only wait if I was on call, always had my work phone with me. And in the middle of the ceremony I got, I get a text from a client. I lost my key to my apartment and I smashed the window and I’m bleeding. 25 or 30 year old me, I leave the church, I get on my bike, my motorcycle and I go to the client. Not even thinking about that. Yeah, that’s one thing. That’s one example of what it costs, and that’s a lot.

00:17:07 Kevin

Yeah, I suppose any, any of us who have been addicted will be able to relate to that story, but I’m particularly relating to the stories that Gabor talks about his classical music addiction. And he tells the story of leaving his son and his son’s friend in the music store. No, sorry, in the toy store while he nips off to get this latest release of this classical music cd. Yeah. Fredrik, thank you for that. So tell me then. paint the picture for me. I know you had a difficult childhood around that. And then paint the picture for me of how this young man grew up. Did you go to university for example, at the normal age? Was that an going at 18, 19 or was that something later in life? Paint that picture for me of how that young man grew into this adult who was so keen on study and work.

00:18:01 Fredrik

Yeah. Let’s paint it like a picture of Jekyll and Hyde. So I’ve been able to go through school and get okay or good grades, like a teenager in gymnasium, high school. And then I think I worked for two years or so before I got to the, got into the university. I think I was 21, 22 or 22, perhaps. And that’s a positive part or a good part. I’ve been able to balance that with addictions and joining gangs or criminal gangs, and it’s always been these two sides. And both parts or sides of me has always been on the search for worthiness or to be somebody, like, at the same time. So that’s also a gift in retrospect, as I view it, because many of the people, most or all the people that I’ve been working with for my adult life, they haven’t had the possibility to have both those sides. I could sit in the cafeteria in the high school, taking amphetamine and then going to the lecture and get good grades, so I could balance that. And I could go to my grandmother’s house for dinner and then later on go and take drugs and go to the motorcycle club. So I always had a… I don’t know if it’s a talent or if it’s just lucky. I don’t know. But I’ve always had that. So that’s been with me, and that’s been like always wanted to. The drive of always wanting to be more or not to get stuck. I was really afraid to get stuck in things so I could start something and then I would be quite good at it. And then I. It didn’t have any value to me anymore, so I started the next thing and. And so on. That’s the way I did it.

00:19:56 Kevin

Well, thank you. I’ll always be fascinated, Fredrik, when I sit with people and can relate to their story, and I can certainly relate to all of your story. And I’m really appreciating that you’re sharing it so openly. And we know the impact of trauma is that it restricts and constricts us. It brings shame, which stops us from talking, and we hide away. And we don’t like to share these things. And to hear a man like you share like this, is very inspiring. So thank you with that. So here we have painting a picture of this young teenage man coming into his 20s, early 20s, and he’s studying a little bit, and then he’s disappearing off into the night and engaging in some extracurricular activities that may not have been so healthy. And now I see this man who runs… And again, please correct my… Konciensia.

00:20:50 Fredrik

Hmm. Yeah, Konciensia.

00:20:52 Kevin

Yeah, Conscientia. Thank you. So. So I hear here I see a man now running an organization with his wife, with two children. You seem to be in a healthy state of mind and a healthy state of body. What changed? What stopped you… to be very crude? What stopped you running off into the night to engage in those extracurricular activities?

00:21:15 Fredrik

For me, yeah, there was. The process , there was a process. I applied to the university when I was, I think, 21, and then later on I became a teacher. During that period, I drank a lot of alcohol. And when I drink, I get mad, really psychotic mad, angry, aggressive, dangerous. So some really bad things went on, but I didn’t get punished for it or, I didn’t get sentenced to any….

00:21:42 Kevin

Prison time or jail time or anything like that.

00:21:44 Fredrik

Okay, yeah, no prison time and jail time. So I could go on being. Studying at the university. And then I stopped drinking. But when I stopped drinking and still during the time I still studied at university, I remember I went into steroids. And that’s. Yeah, that’s a pattern I see with my male clients as well, especially the ones that been sexually abused. And we don’t want to be small, we want to be big and dangerous. And steroids, they magically make all that happen, like that. But at one point, I didn’t actually perceive it to be an addiction at the time. It took a couple of years afterwards, like everyone’s doing it. Just stab a needle in your leg and put it in and that’s okay. It’s not drugs, it’s not heroin, it’s not amphetamine, so, just testosterone. But I got really sick. I thought I was going to die one time, just my leg became twice as big and I got a really high fever. And it was at the end of my studies to be a high school teacher. And I had the shame of admitting to someone that I’ve been doing steroids and taking a degree here to become a teacher. I decided there and then that I’m not gonna tell anyone. I’m just gonna lie here. If I live, I’ll live. If I die, I’ll die. And that was the last time I used steroids. So now I stopped that. So when I stopped that, I started working extra jobs and studying full time and so on. It worked for me like that. And so the nightly activities and the criminal activities, they stopped over the years, and they changed to working a lot, or working full time and studying full time and maybe be training for 12 times a week, and working full time and yeah, so on. And what actually stopped this cycle in me or woke me up, I should see. It was 10 years ago this summer, 22nd of August, 10 years ago, a client tried to kill me. So he stabbed me with a knife and I managed to, to deflect and to get away and of course I lived. I didn’t get any major injuries but it was a really big knife. If I haven’t stopped him. Probably wouldn’t. Yeah, major difficulties or at least like best outcome would be that I had been really hurt. That was like a wake up call in many senses. I knew before going to see the client, he was convicted of murder before, he was a paranoid schizophrenic. I was the expert at working with dangerous men. The more dangerous the better, suits really fits the pattern of wanting to be somebody. So before going there I knew and I said to someone at the office, I wanted to go alone and I said because I don’t want to have anyone with me. And I said to him, it’s going to go really good, or he’s going to try to kill me, He’s going to stab me. So I knew this going in, and I didn’t have to go like being  at the cinema and then, well it happened. That was the driver to be somebody, to be that manager, to be that boss, to be that man. And actually at the trial later on, I didn’t have any anger towards the client and he really didn’t have anything towards me. He was in a psychosis mode, so to speak. But in the trial he said, when he got the question, how come, why did they stab, why did they try to kill Fredrik? He said, oh, I like him, I know he’s doing good things for people, but I choose him because I know he can take it. He’s a man. He’s got big muscles and tattoos and he’s a wrestler. He’s a man so he can take it. That’s why I stabbed him. So I went there to see him having the same belief as he had stabbing me. That was pretty weird to hear. I remember in that, in trial later on, that we had had the same belief or thought that guided us. Okay, I can do this and I can stab him because he thinks he’s. Because he’s a man. He’s really a man.

00:26:03 Kevin

Thank you, Fredrik. And another thing our, our listeners, a lot of them will know because they’re Compassionate Inquiry people and a lot of them won’t. One of our levels of compassion, if you like, is compassion of recognition. I hear you talking about this paranoid schizophrenic who’s holding the same belief as you are. He’s not that different. He’s not that different than you. And here he is on trial for attempted murder. And you’re the person that he was attempting to murder. Over the last few minutes that you’ve been chatting to us, there’s quite an irony in that story that those two paths should collide at a cinema with a large neck. And we’re both laughing. I think we’re both laughing not at the humor, but at the absurdity or the absolute craziness of this world, and how two people can be so similar, yet in two very different situations. Thank you for that, Frederik.

I really get a sense of you right now. And I was saying to my… I hope this lands the right way. We’ve got a few thousand miles between us, so maybe it’s okay. However it lands. When I was looking at some stuff online about you, and I said to my colleague, Fredrik looks like a really. He looks like a really hard man. He looks… There’s a picture on there of yourself and your wife. And your wife’s a very beautiful woman. But both of you in that picture, I thought, wow, I wouldn’t like to meet those two in a dark entry having done something wrong. And that really gives a picture of your life up to that point or this point. Fredrik, would it be okay to move and talk a little bit about your work? Because I can hear now, I really get a sense of why you do the work that you do and also why you also might be very good at it. Because you’re coming to these places and these people with a deep understanding and knowledge of how life is for them. You’re not coming in a white coat, wearing a stethoscope, carrying a clipboard. You’re coming as someone who has walked the walk. Talk to me a little bit then about the work that you’re doing right now. And maybe if you’d like, talk to me about the work that fascinates you the most that you’re doing right now.

00:28:13 Fredrik

Up till this summer, I’m going to say that I worked and I own three treatment centers, and I sold. I left that. So now I’m only doing the one company with my wife, Conscientia. And I see clients online, of course. That’s the beauty of Compassionate Inquiry. Being a practitioner, you can meet people all over the world and do good and hopefully do really good things. We have an office and we have a yoga room and two treatment rooms there. We meet clients that come for both therapy, but also we work with. You’re not allowed to say therapy when you work within the corporate world. Yeah, you have to use the word coaching. Otherwise they will be scared or. Yeah, send some fear. But it’s. It’s the same thing actually. And that could be one on one. Or there can be groups like group settings, teams or to facilitate the work team that don’t get along anymore or there’s. There’s some issue there and there’s some constriction in the group, or something like that. And we have this policy in my wife and I that we always work like two or three, two, at least two each, pro bono clients all the time. So we have that running all the time. And that’s of course, for me, that’s the clients that I’ve worked with for so long time, they can’t afford that. They’re addicted. One doesn’t have a home to call her own and so on. So that’s one thing we do. And I also am involved in the prison yoga project. And the prison yoga project is all over the world and in Sweden we’re not allowed to do prison yoga inside prison. So I run a group for ex criminals or people who’ve been to jail or people who’ve been to treatment centers, men who are in treatment that can come to the yoga studio that I’m in and one, one and a half hour a week for free. I do it for free. It’s a pro bono. And they come. They have to be sober, of course. And it’s so beautiful to be able to do that, and to be able to do it for free. Actually. Yeah, I got the question. Do you want to get paid? No, I don’t want to be paid. Not for doing that, if I’m going to do more, of course. But for me, it’s so beautiful. So in this the last year I sold my part of that company and we’re trying to make it like Conscientia. It’s. It means conscious. Right. Or awareness. So we’re trying to do that and to spread some compassion here in Sweden and to broaden that. So that’s what we’re doing right now. Just trying to make it work.

00:30:49 Kevin

Yeah. Again, I get that real sense of. I know it’s an English word, Fredrik. Altruism. Are you familiar with that word? A real sense of altruism. Not just from you, obviously, from your wife and your children as well, that doing this pro bono work and offering these services to people who can’t afford it. I’m curious, how do your clients relate to your past? Does that have an impact on the work that you do or the relationships that you Have. How does that show up?

00:31:20 Fredrik

Most of the time, most of the clients, it’s. Let’s say it’s a good thing. It’s an icebreaker. Me looking the way I’m looking. Yeah, the horror tattoos all over the arms and no hair and the beard and so on, like you said. But that’s also something that I can be playful with. Toxic, manly norm. To be able to look the way I look and still be compassionate and present. But some of my clients, just particularly one of them, one of the bravest boys, men I’ve ever worked with, he told me that, it was like the second or third session and he said, you are a copy of my abuser. His stepfather. You’re a copy of him. Well, you look like him, you sound like him, almost have similar tattoos. And now we’ve been seeing each other for six months. We’ve summarized what’s been going on, where are we at right now? And he said, being able to feel safe with you has made my relationship to men, in general, much better. Yeah, I took that as a really. I don’t know, it was the sign. But yeah, it was so good to hear, and to be able to say it out loud now, because the way I look can sometimes be… can be judged by the way I look. Of course, you don’t want to meet me having problems in a dark alley.

00:32:49 Kevin

And again, Fredrik, it’s really interesting because here I sit in front of you, I’ve got a little more hair than you, but I too, am a little bit strange looking. I’ve got tattoos on my hands and on my neck and. And maybe… Let’s move this conversation this way. I think for men like us, tattooed neck, tattooed hands, you’re a muscular guy and of a certain physique. And for us to be demonstrating those qualities that you named kindness, compassion, trust, safety, that’s a big deal, I think. Talk to me then, if you would, about your understanding. Toxic masculinity is a very. I’m not sure I like that term. I think it maybe could be, traumatized masculinity, might be a better word for that. But anyway, let’s not get into the semantics of it. Talk to me about that. Talk to me about traumatized or toxic masculinity. How did we end up here in your point of view, that men, we have much higher rates of men being incarcerated, much higher rates of men committing crimes, much higher rates of men committed suicide. Talk to me about that a little bit. Help me understand how you see that and why you’re so Interested in “toxic masculinity?”

00:34:09 Fredrik

No. I think you probably described it just now. It has something to do with the word toxic. Right. But it doesn’t get toxic if it’s not traumatic to start with. So probably when we talk about toxic, from Gabor’s book, but toxic male norms, we don’t use the word traumatic. And that’s probably, in my view, a big part of the problem that we don’t acknowledge that and we just see the toxicity of it, the outcome of it. And so I think you put it quite good there, doing that distinction between not liking or, or not seeing with you the word toxic. It has to do with traumatic, that’s where it starts. It starts with the pain and it’s a way to adapt to the pain. And it’s a lot of people, a lot of men that are not allowed to, to feel certain feelings as in men are in the traumatic norm, are allowed to feel anger and express anger. We’re allowed to express ourself violently or putting people down or those kind of things that we later on we can describe as toxic in that kind of culture or, or norm, where little boys become traumatized men later on. If I would have been held when I was a child, if I would have been held and seen when I was three or four when those traumatic things happened to me, then my life probably would have been different. So that’s the one thing. I actually got sexually abused from when I was 9 or 10. There was a boy, he was three or four years older than me. And the Compassionate Inquiry question, who did you speak to? I didn’t speak to no one because I learned that I’m alone with it. That wouldn’t happen. And that’s one part of the toxicity or the manly norms that we don’t talk about. We’re just allowed to express certain feelings or emotions. I also see this, and let’s see what you think about it. But I also see this in treatment or in therapy. Not only do I see it not in CBT and or 12 step or so in men. It has to hurt, it has to be painful. You have to be a man to do it or you have to push through. So these kind of traumatic norms, manly norms, also get wired into treatment or therapy, and looking back in my career on myself, that never brought any healing to me. It just brought me moving along and going to the next or.  and I can see this in my clients, doesn’t bring any, any healing, doesn’t bring any compassion. It doesn’t get you to Be aware of what’s going on in your body right now. I had a client today and he said I’m okay. I said, how are you doing right now? I’m okay. Okay, you’re okay. How does your body tell you that you’re okay right now? Check in with your body and just tell me what’s going on. Okay. And he’s able to do that and his hands are sweaty and he can register that his heart’s beating fast and his shoulders are and muscles are tensing up and then he just bursts out and laughs and like I’m no near. Okay. That’s powerful thing to be able to just see that and to acknowledge that and be with that. Not to suck it up and just saying that you’re okay. Moving on.

00:37:49 Kevin

It’s a really interesting piece that you’re mentioning, Frederik, around the idea of toxic masculinity seeping into the very space therapy treatment certainly. And I’m not going to mention them now. I’m sure there would be legal implications, but there certainly… I’m thinking of a lot of self help type stuff which when we look at it, is steeped in ego and what seems to be toxic masculinity. And I don’t know whether that’s going to do any good to help the state of toxic masculinity or make it worse. So how do you, I’m keen then, how do your clients find you? When, as we were saying earlier, this dude with shaved head, beard, tattoos, muscly arms. How do your clients relate to that? When you can talk about being sad, I imagine, or being grieving or being ashamed or… How do your clients relate to that? How do these men find that?

00:38:44 Fredrik

They find it really safe. Yeah, I think that’s the word. And they feel, or perceive themselves, to be seen. Like I had one client last week like in their 60s and he said, I have never in my life felt seen as I do now. And, and when I think, of course my presence and who I am and what I’m trained in and so on the key and what I’m coming from and my way of looking at life and myself these days, but also the way I look, if I can be. Yeah, the word vulnerable in men – or the word vulnerable in itself, when I can be vulnerable, be able to be with my pain or emotion and talk about that and show that and share that. Yeah, that’s safety. And when you’re, when you feel safe and you can be seen at the same time, most of these men, they don’t ever want to be seen. Yeah, they want to be seen, of course they want to be seen deep down. But they want the protection of the tattoos and the gangs and the drugs and so on, it’s all the way to be seen or to see for yourself what is going on in there. And to see me being able to be with that, I think that brings a lot of safety. And also whatever they feel or perceive, not to be normal gets quite normal. If I can do it or if I have done it, if I can relate to their pain or their adaptations and so on, that brings a lot of safety.

00:40:11 Kevin

Thank you, Fredrik. As you were chatting there, I do n’t know if you know the anecdote. I think it was Besser van der Kolk. It was either Bessel or Peter Levine, who was working in a jail, a prison, and was working with young men. And he realized that he had to schedule in 30 minutes after his meeting with them, so that they could sit and literally dry their eyes because they couldn’t go back out onto the wing. If they looked like they had shown any emotion at all, if they looked like they had been vulnerable at all, that was a real high risk for them. And he realized that he had to give them time to compose themselves and put their hard image back on again. And my guess is for people coming to see you, and being held in their vulnerability, being seen in their vulnerability and seeing vulnerability in you as well, must be a very liberating and healing experience.

00:41:13 Fredrik

Yeah, I think so. I have my own experience with what you just shared, the anecdote there. When I worked at a treatment center, and that’s been a lot of emotion and tears, and they had to just sit for a while, not to toughen up, but not to show that I’ve cried, not to show that I’ve been so emotional. I think it brings a lot of safety and the world needs to heal. But I think this is as good a place to start as any. Start with a traumatic masculinity and how it starts. And if we were to acknowledge that men who use violence, like violence against women, is a huge topic. It’s boys, little boys get traumatized. They grow up to be traumatized men, and they do bad things, and to be able to be safe and compassionate and to hold that space for these men. I often talk about, No Bad Parts, the book No Bad Parts, because these parts of us that, like when you said, when you see me in the picture and you get a certain sense of, I don’t want to make that man angry. And that part, he’s of course he’s there. That part is still here. Not doing bad things, that’s not the part’s intention at first, but that was hard work to be compassionate towards, to hold that part in compassion. So much shame and guilt and grief and pain related to all the things that I’ve done, or if my thoughts were, and so on, to be able to say, okay, even that part has a good intention. And even that part I can hold in compassion. And that takes a lot of work. That’s what CI did for me the most, to be able to hold that part in compassion. And with others, of course not myself, but with others, to be able to be in that safe space. You can talk about safe space, but for me to be in that safe, just capital letters, SAFE space for that part to be held. Ah, I think that’s the best thing for me that CI brought me, I can see it in my clients as well. When that part can be held in compassion, so much unfolds. Okay, maybe I don’t need to close down my heart anymore. Maybe I don’t need to do that. So that’s a really beautiful thing.

00:43:41 Kevin

That’s a really beautiful story, relating to that. This is where this work gets really deep and can be really difficult for some people, because to be able to hold that part of us, that traumatized masculinity, to be able to hold that, can seem to the outside world to be letting people off the hook, or to not be punishing people who have done bad things. And I get that. I think we all get that. But if we want to heal, I think it’s really important for us to understand that people do bad things because they’ve been really hurt, they’ve been really traumatized, and we will not heal unless we can hold the darkest, most dangerous parts of ourselves and others. And it’s really big work. It’s really big work. And I’m really honoring the fact that you’ve been able to do that for yourself and that you’re doing that for others. That’s huge. That’s huge. Thank you for that. Very playfully, Frederik, you and I must copyright the term “traumatized masculinity.”

00:44:52 Fredrik

Yeah, I think so. Of course.

00:44:54 Kevin

Yeah, we’ll keep that one for ourselves. That’s a book. That’s a book that we need to write.

00:44:58 Fredrik

Yeah, yeah.

00:45:00 Kevin

The removal of this. Because as you were chatting, I was thinking that the idea of toxic masculinity, it almost shuts the conversation down, there’s nowhere really for it to go. It’s just toxic, and we need to chop it out and get rid of it. Whereas when we call it traumatized masculinity, that kind of opens the conversation up.

00:45:20 Fredrik

Yeah. It brings a possibility.

00:45:22 Kevin

It brings a possibility. That’s really beautiful. Okay, so we heard it here first, to our listeners on the Gifts of Trauma podcast. Fredrik, I am keen to ask you two things. Is there anything that is important to you that we haven’t teased out yet? Is there anything that we haven’t spoken about that you would like to?

00:45:44 Fredrik

The conversation, like, going like this? I think we can talk for hours about everything, of course, but it’s no particular topic that comes to mind.

00:45:53 Kevin

Okay, thank you. I really appreciate that. And then maybe my final question, and I’m sure if you’ve listened to the Gifts of Trauma podcast before you, you’ll know that I ask this a lot, and I always say this too. I ask it playfully, but I mean it very seriously, because I think people like you have something to say and something that should be heard. If you, Frederik, had the ear of humanity to whisper something into, or let’s sharpen it for you. If you had the ear of traumatized masculinity, that you could whisper something into, what would you whisper? What would you say?

00:46:36 Fredrik

First thing that comes to mind is, you are not alone. Because that sense of loneliness, fear, for me, at least. Yeah. The loneliness, that was big part of the driver. Outcome of trauma, outcome of traumatic masculinity. Yeah. Because we go around, feel so alone, and we’re not alone. To anyone who hears that, this conversation, and many other conversations on the podcast, they will know that we are not alone. But a man who identifies as…perhaps how I look identifies as the bad part or the angry part or he really needs to know, that he’s not alone. And that pain, however it comes out, he’s not alone. He can be here in this community or whatever works, and be safe and understood. And  Gordon Neufeld says this drive for togetherness. I really love that you’re not alone. And we have a drive for togetherness, so we need to show up and show that we’re not alone. Wow.

00:47:46 Kevin

Thank you, Fredrik. That little final answer of yours there, I could notice it bringing that emotion into my chest. And if we could create that environment that this culture of traumatized masculinity, and say to people, yeah, that fear that you’re carrying, that damage, however it’s showing up, it will be held safely, that you will be honored and you’re not alone. I think that would make such a huge difference in the world. Fredrik, thank you for having this conversation with me. I really appreciate your skill, I really appreciate you as a human being and I appreciate your time. Thank you for joining me on the Gifts of Trauma podcast.

00:48:30 Fredrik

Thank you so much. Thank you.

00:48:40 Rosemary

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