Breaking the Silence: Healing Male Trauma

Why do so many male survivors of childhood trauma and sexual abuse stay silent? In this deeply personal and eye-opening conversation, Pat Tenneriello sits down with Mason Shell, Executive Director and Education Coordinator at the British Columbia Society for Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse (BCSMSSA). Together, they explore the cultural barriers that keep men from seeking help, the impact of trauma on masculinity and relationships, and the transformative journey of healing and its impact on personal growth and finding purpose. Drawing from both professional expertise and personal experience, this episode sheds light on the invisible struggles many men face—and the pathways to reclaiming their lives.

What You'll Learn:

• Why so many men stay silent about childhood trauma and sexual abuse
• How trauma impacts masculinity, relationships, and personal growth
• The concept of “The Talons of Trauma” and how it keeps survivors stuck
• The difference between guilt and shame—and why shame is so difficult to overcome
• How structured therapy programs help men with healing and personal growth
• Why many survivors struggle with commitment, intimacy, and self-worth
• How to find the right therapist or support system for your healing journey
• The power of group therapy and connecting with other survivors
• How childhood trauma shapes personal identity and decision-making
• The role of self-awareness, integrity, and “love for future self” in personal growth

Referenced Resources:

• British Columbia Society for Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse
• Website 1in6.org
• Powerful video that highlights the barriers of male sexual abuse
• Men in Healing Psychotherapy program that Pat references

Social Media:

• After Peter Pan Podcast: 
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
• Mason Shell:
  • https://bc-malesurvivors.com/about-us/contact-us/

Chapters

• 1:18 Personal Growth and Healing Journeys
• 1:18 Hook & Intro
• 4:38 Eclectic Approaches to Therapy
• 8:14 Understanding Male Trauma
• 11:49 Cultural Perspectives on Male Trauma
• 15:43 Statistics and Underreporting of Male Abuse
• 18:33 The BC Male Sexual Abuse Organization
• 21:27 Program Structure and Group Therapy Benefits
• 22:14 Navigating Group Therapy Dynamics
• 24:24 Impact Stories: Transformations Through Support
• 26:52 Personal Growth: Aligning Actions with Values
• 29:39 Taking the First Step: Resources for Healing
• 34:16 Childhood Trauma: The Path to Self-Discovery
• 40:55 Masculinity: Redefining Strength and Vulnerability
• 43:17 The Peter Pan Syndrome: Adulting and Responsibility
• 45:56 Mindset Matters: Keys to Successful Therapy
• 51:59 Therapy as a Lifelong Journey: When to Seek Help
• 53:31 The Role of Therapy in Personal Growth
• 54:44 Exploring Alternative Therapies and Life Coaching
• 56:23 Finding the Right Therapist: Resources and Trust
• 59:15 Understanding Shame and Guilt in Therapy
• 1:04:00 The Importance of Playfulness in Therapy
• 1:08:20 Navigating Therapist Burnout and Vicarious Trauma
• 1:11:00 The Balance of Personality and Professionalism in Therapy
• 1:13:26 When to Seek Therapy: Guidance and Considerations
• 1:16:12 First Steps to Seeking Help
• 1:19:37 Defining Growing Up: Personal Reflections
• 1:24:40 Outro

Transcript

Mason Shell (00:00)
most of clients, I think struggle with masculinity. or they kind of struggle with it and then hypercompensate in some way. Like, I don't know, some big, roided out guy who objectifies women or something. we do run into that type of like, traditional masculinity. as soon as that conversation is broached.

you get in and you can start to be like, well, where did you get that concept of masculinity from? Because most guys that I've worked with, they don't love the concept of masculinity that they have, or they feel like they're falling short of it.

Pat Tenneriello (00:30)
Welcome to the After Peter Pan podcast, where we explore what it means to grow up and find purpose. I'm your host, Pat Tenneriello Today I'm joined by Mason Shell, Executive Director and Education Coordinator at the British Columbia Society for Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse. We have a conversation about childhood trauma, sexual abuse, and why so many men stay silent.

We explore how trauma impacts masculinity and most importantly, what real healing looks like. As someone who has been through a similar program, I know firsthand the life-changing impact this work has on personal growth. Let's break the silence. Enjoy the episode.

Pat Tenneriello (01:09)
this episode has been in my head since before I started the podcast. very first idea for the very first episode was this conversation.

I can't tell you how excited I am that we're finally having it. So I really appreciate it. my personal growth and my journey, my healing journey, really the foundation was the program I did in Ottawa with Men in Healing and all the work I did there with my childhood trauma. So it just was the foundation for everything that came after that over the last five, six years.

Mason Shell (01:22)
Good.

Yeah, well, well, I will hopefully not disappoint.

Pat Tenneriello (01:43)
Cool. So maybe we can start. Yeah. How did you get involved with the, the BC male sexual abuse, organization? Like what, what drew you to it?

Mason Shell (01:51)
I was actually suggested to it when I was getting my masters. So I did my practicum with the agency, meaning I got my hundreds of hours of clinical time and stuff as this master's student. I think they just thought I'd be a good fit working with men. It wasn't necessarily something, because I get asked that a lot, and it wasn't necessarily something that I was really thinking about beforehand.

But now that I've started doing the work and I realize kind of the patterns in this population and just what's going on, it certainly has made me a stronger therapist. And there's a lot of deep understandings of how trauma works and stuff. But there wasn't something specific. I didn't have a personal angle to it or anything.

If anything, think part of what drew me to it is knowing that I grew up like fairly privileged and kind of wanting to kind of offer some of that back and talking with a lot of these guys and realizing the way they grew up and the stuff they were having to deal with is very dark, but also kind of beautiful to be able to hold that space and kind of witness that. So I guess would be my main personal angle was recognizing that they're all growing up differently and it feels like moral obligation.

to be able to offer my support with that.

Pat Tenneriello (02:55)
as I was reading the bio from the website, a few words jumped out at me. thought I'd ask you. though he works eclectically and incorporates multiple modalities into his work. He takes a foundationally narrative approach to therapy eclectically. What, like, what do you, what does that mean? I was really curious to ask you about that.

Mason Shell (03:13)
Go.

I just think like when you're going to school and particularly in like the counseling field, there's such a sense of pick a theoretical orientation. Pick one of the ones that's been, there's books written about that you can validate exactly what you're doing. And the more I started just learning from the clients, the more I was like, you can't, I can't just do cognitive behavioral therapy with people. can, and eclectically, I just mean you can draw tools from all these different things. But I think you're...

kind of hamstringing yourself as a clinician if you're so focused or if your own anxiety to kind of be able to improvise and draw from different things gets in the way. And now that I'm training other clinicians and stuff, like we do caution them to like, yeah, do what you need to do for these exams, pick a theory that feels good for you, but also realize you're going to be drawing from a lot of different things. So trauma work in particular is so much about just the interpersonal and the witnessing of what that kid went through and stuff that

the idea that someone's going to be talking about that. And then I just kind of hand them a worksheet or something. It never sat right with me. And then yeah, narrative, was, I was trained a bit when I had a different practicum site as well. And by that, I just mean, I really like the narrative techniques. Some of them are about just hearing the story and hearing how a person's framing it and what, meaning making they're doing. But I do a lot of little techniques like externalizing some of these problems. What do you call them? Can you write a letter to your

Pat Tenneriello (04:17)
Hmm.

you

Mason Shell (04:38)
inner child, that type of stuff. So I like that as a kind of a foundation.

Pat Tenneriello (04:42)
Okay, interesting. And when it comes to working with this population of men, do you find that there are specific exercises or techniques that work particularly effectively?

Mason Shell (04:55)
Yeah, I find like it's a bit of like trial and error and it really does depend on the guy. Um, and I find that that's something difficult to talking about it because I mean, we'll probably get into statistics and under reporting and stuff like that, but there's a significant amount of the male population that has been abused and we have clients that are polar opposites, completely different. Some are very overwhelmed, dysregulated, panicking. Others are very cognitive. They've kind of made sense of things. So you really have to

figure out which client you're working with. But there are certain things that I do pretty regularly. Like I like the idea of externalizing, you just talk about feeling sad, you name it, and then they get familiar with kind of the beast or whatever they want to call it. Stuff like that I use with couples and all sorts of stuff. But I think that there's a, like the main way I approach it is kind of through evolutionary psychology and normalizing what's supposed to be happening and why they feel off and stuff. And then I use a lot of

techniques. What I would say is like to help clients interact with the emotions that come up. I use the term echoes of trauma or talons of trauma, which is the metaphor that I'm using now that I can kind of walk through if you're interested. But it helps guys understand that it's not just talking about the past. It's also a sense of like, what's the pragmatism for talking about this? Like, why is it useful? So quickly go through the talons of trauma things that I think really creates like a

Pat Tenneriello (06:06)
Sure.

Yeah, please.

Mason Shell (06:18)
like an understanding of kind of how I approach the work and why I don't just draw from one theory. But so I'm using the metaphor of the talons of trauma, which basically, if you imagine this kind of dark creature behind you, the origins of trauma, it might be family systems, might be bullying, it might be sexual abuse, might be violence, stuff like that. So that creature might have a bunch of different kind of heads, the shadowy thing. And it's tough to look back at that and be comfortable with it without feeling fear or overwhelm. But I think that that creature then reaches forward.

got its talons kind of in a person's shoulders. So they feel held back, they feel stuck, they feel afraid to turn around. It kind of hurts to think about these current things they're going through. Examples of those types of what I call talons or echoes would be like issues of masculinity, issues with sexuality, issues in relationships, substance use, pushing people away, like all these things that trauma can kind of manifest in. And the reason I map that out with clients is so that they understand that a big part of the work is being able to look back.

and kind of build compassion and understanding by looking at that monster behind us or that kind of shadowy creature. But the other part of therapy that I think is really important is to understand that part of it is also figuring out which talons apply to that person and then learning how to kind of wiggle them out. They will leave a scar. It will always be dark and kind of sad. But my hope is that a client doesn't just leave session thinking, Mason gets what I've been through, but also feeling like, Mason knows what he's doing and he's helping me.

kind of map out how to make sure this is pragmatic and useful. So, yeah, I kind of co-created that with an indigenous community I was working with. It's trying to bring in kind of more visual metaphor and stuff. But most of my clients seem to resonate because with trauma, so, it can be so like ambiguous that I think giving them that type of roadmap allows us to be like, hey, do we want to do the looking back and witnessing or do we want to kind of wiggle some of these talons Can I check in on these things? So it creates a framework for trauma work that

helps me a lot too to make sure the work is moving in the right direction.

Pat Tenneriello (08:14)
Those talons that you talk about, it's under the context of trauma, but I'm assuming

Oftentimes it'll also be from just else in life, And it's not always, it's very gray in terms of where the trauma ends and where the other stuff takes over. If you follow what I'm saying.

Mason Shell (08:30)
Yeah, yeah,

yeah, no, I totally do. And I think that's important because trauma comes from the nervous system, losing a sense of control. So the brain's flooded with cortisol and adrenaline. It changes brain structures like the hippocampus, the amygdala fires emotion differently, like, but that's not really coming from a single act of violence or some sort of sexual encounter. people voluntarily go into BDSM and stuff.

But because they have control, it's not likely to be traumatizing. Whereas when a young person going through these things and there's no safety, there's no power, there's no control, the nervous system has to kind of compensate. And I think that's where all these kind of echoes of trauma or talons of trauma really show up. And part of that is also a discomfort with ambiguity, a sense that I need clear answers. I need to know exactly what this is. So being able to understand that trauma is not just like a single event for most people. It's a collection of different things.

I have clients who are, I would say, more traumatized because they were bullied for being gay than they were about being abused. So it's, it really does depend on just the person's context around it. And if they, if they were able to go through something traumatic and then return to safety versus if they go through something traumatic and then there's no safety to return to, the nervous system will get trapped in it. I think that's basically the difference between CPTSD versus PTSD. But yeah, I totally hear what you're saying. I some clients that are like,

Pat Tenneriello (09:49)
Interesting.

Mason Shell (09:50)
this one event is the thing that ruined everything. And I'm like, well, there's a million different things going on and your parents kind of sucked. And so it's never really that one event. But for a lot of these guys, that is the thing that they're coming in with and that they want to focus on.

Pat Tenneriello (10:00)
Right.

That's it.

Yeah. It's the excuse or that's, in a sense, I grateful in a sense that I maybe would have never done therapy otherwise if there had not been a trauma. Once I was through the door, I realized, okay, the trauma got me in the door, but then it's like, there's a whole bag of things here, you know? So.

Mason Shell (10:21)
I totally

agree. viewed trauma work a bit as like a Trojan horse into getting to know someone's story and really help kind of tinker with how they integrate moving forward. But yeah, a lot of these guys, I think they do lean on it as a way to justify like, I don't need therapy. I'm a man. why do I need to talk with that? But this kind of gives them an in. And then usually they figure out like, oh, there's a lot of other things that I can be talking about and working on.

Pat Tenneriello (10:27)
Exactly.

Maybe that's a good segue. How do you feel that male trauma differs from female trauma?

Mason Shell (10:54)
The thing that I usually point to is that Like it's not different chemically. It's not different biologically It does come from again that nervous system shifting into being overwhelmed and then trying to kind of find its way back to feeling safe or calm One way to look at that too would be that like when someone's in their heightened form of trauma, they can be Dissociative they can be super overwhelmed and panicking they can be anxious and ruminating

but it usually comes with a level of kind of self-implied pressure and vigilance. And I think the arc of good trauma work is to have someone go from that state and not being kind of aware of it to someone who can be playful and joke around and stuff like that and then kind of laugh with themselves. I think that playfulness is usually what's robbed specifically with childhood trauma. So if you can get a client back to that state of being playful and not taking ourselves too seriously, it's usually a strong thing. But...

So I think all that, like when I'm working privately with women as well, it's kind of the same stuff I'm doing, but as tragic as it is, and this is something I've said before, but a woman being raped or abused, it's kind of congruent with culture's sense of femininity. Although there's a rallying cry, there's a sense of the Me Too movement and stuff it's advocated for. And there's a lot of support out there. Whereas for men, one, there isn't much institutional or structural support.

That's why we're such like an island in this kind of ocean, just our agency. But also the idea just culturally, the way we view masculinity. Like it almost always comes up with feeling not manly or something like that. Or why didn't I fight back? And I'm like, well, you were five. Like, of course you weren't going to fight back. But there is still that sense. And I, so I think that being abused or raped or molested for a man is kind of culturally incongruent with masculinity.

So then you kind of have to be able to talk about what masculinity is and what courage really is. So I think it's mostly the cultural framing of it because I mean, the evidence shows that once men know there are resources out there, they do seek them out, including domestic abuse and stuff like that. And men are just more resistant to allowing the emotions, I think. Like a lot of my female clients and a lot of my staff's female clients are, they're more willing to just kind of have the tears come up and it doesn't feel like they're.

embarrassing themselves. think a lot of guys feel like, I shouldn't be sitting here with some other man and crying about my past. I should get over it type idea, which is tough. It's a huge barrier for all resources. And the other thing is a lot of guys don't really recognize that they were like abused. They just don't clock it or frame it. I've worked with one client who came in for domestic violence and then we started talking about his past and he was very much like, yeah, I guess I was being abused, but like boys don't cry kind of thing. And I was like, okay, interesting. So.

Yeah, I think it's mostly a cultural distinction.

Pat Tenneriello (13:40)
I could relate to that mindset shift that happens where you go from, that happened to me too. Sometimes that could take a very, very long time.

maybe that's a good question is, why do so many never report or acknowledge their abuse?

Mason Shell (13:56)
Well, I think there's a few different angles to that. Again, some might not know it was abuse. It might be abuse on paper. It might be obvious that there was abuse going on, definitionally. But they might think like, like with with childhood trauma in particular, which I can talk about, like there's a lot of reasons that people blame themselves. And then when they when when you're talking with someone and they're like, you were a five year old, the person still has that sense of shaming and guilt. So there's

That can be a really powerful piece of it. Some people dissociate because I think it's about 10 % that there's some form of amnesia and it's either triggered later in life or the person just is told that they were abused, but they have no memory of it. some people, if you, if the abuse was very kind of well groomed, as weird as that sounds, like if the person was grooming and they created a sense of safety and stuff, the brain might not actually be traumatized from it. So it might not be bothering coding some clear memory. might just be like, that was

kind of play time, I didn't really think about it. But again, I culturally for guys, they're just, it opens up a can of worms and I think it's easier to open up a can of beer basically and just kind of not have to think about it. So a lot of them just tough it out. They don't want anyone to know. Like I'm a pretty like emotional guy and I was actually somewhat surprised talking with my clients about even dating and stuff and this fear that if they know someone knows they went through abuse, they're like not lovable.

And to me, that's like, it's a bit logically doesn't make sense. And I'm like, that's more of an indictment on whoever decides to treat you that way. But it's a pretty common thing that there's that sense of it too. So I think it's basically just they're shielding themselves from that sense of having to be vulnerable.

Pat Tenneriello (15:33)
I think there's a common thinking out there that statistically it just happens much less frequently than it does to females. was wondering if you could share some statistics around sexual abuse that highlight the scope of this issue, particularly for men.

Mason Shell (15:49)
whenever I'm like doing one of these talks or interviews or whatever, I always just quickly like look at the most updated statistics and more and more it just seems to be, excuse me, more and more it seems like people are pointing to the number that's one in six. If your listeners are interested, there's a resource called one in six dot org, which is specifically and that's the digit one and the digit six. Some people have spelled wrong. Anyway, if you Google it, you'll find it, but

It kind of accumulates a lot of resources and people's testimonials, they run anonymous kind of groups so people can hear other people who've been abused and it's for men. But that's more or less what the statistics say is one in six, but that's also based on reporting. And again, even given what we've talked about already, like men are just, think, far less likely to report. Like my own anecdotal kind of sense of it is probably more like one in four, maybe one in five.

And it is higher for women, like more women go through it or more women are reporting. But when you're a minor, it's not as discrepant as I think people think. feel like if you're a kid, you're just as likely to be abused kind of either way. And that kind of tapers off as young boys become adolescents and men. But yeah, the number that they bounce around is one in six, which maybe I'm too saturated in all this, but I would assume that has to be higher than that just because of a...

Pat Tenneriello (16:50)
Okay.

Mason Shell (17:04)
Guy's not reporting.

Pat Tenneriello (17:05)
Yeah, that's quite the statistic. Maybe we can switch and talk about the organization itself. Do you know the background on the organization and why it was specifically targeted for men?

Mason Shell (17:15)
Yeah, so the founder was kind of my, my mentor and he's older now and retired and stuff, but he founded a location on the island, which he got, I guess, like status for, but it was basically like out of his living room and he had like a handful of clients and wasn't, he was not a business guy. So it wasn't like making any money, but he just saw this kind of need. And I don't know his full story, but I don't know what he's been through, but he had an affinity to kind of guys that were struggling.

And he just started it, kind of him and the chair of our board both started working together back in, I think it was 1988 or something like that. And then in the early nineties, they amalgamated the island with being a Vancouver location. And that's when it became the BC SMSSA, which is a terrible acronym, but the BC society. And then, yeah, since then it's just kind of grown, but it was founded because of Dawn's kind of...

he just recognized the need for it and there was nothing out there so he just decided he would start doing it. And since then it has grown. Like I started as the director in 2022 and the educator in 2019 and even since then I think in the wake of COVID and Me Too and all that we're seeing our numbers go up and up and I keep having to bring on new therapists just to meet the demand so but it is kind of an island there just isn't much.

out there. So anytime someone's going to the police or anything like that, we're just kind of the de facto place that they're referred to because there's nowhere else to really go. And we expanded the mandate, I think it was 2015 or 2016 or something. I don't have the year off hand before I started, but to also include domestic violence. So there's a lot of like lawyer referrals and stuff because again, the guys, there isn't much support out there for guys going through that either. So

Pat Tenneriello (18:43)
Hm.

And, I'm familiar with the structure of the men in healing program in Ottawa, which was also quite the Island. was very lucky that I happened to be in Ottawa and find this program. Cause like you said, they are far and few between. And one thing I really liked about their program was that it was very structured and they walked you through that structure before you began. And there was like a start, a middle and an end kind of thing. And for me.

There's some comfort in that, like that this wasn't going to be like a forever thing, even though personal growth obviously is a forever thing. And in many ways it's a lifelong journey, but I liked that the structure for the program had a start, a middle and an end. Can you tell me a little bit about how you guys are structured,

Mason Shell (19:33)
Yeah.

Yeah, well it used to be a bit.

like a bit of the Wild West. We'd be seeing people kind of forever. But so in the last few years, we've changed some of the policy. So we offer 26, like clinical sessions. And then usually if people need them, my therapist just fill out a form and I just sign off on it and they can

they can have more but that's partially so we have turnover and we can pick up new clients. Otherwise it's really easy for a therapist to just kind of keep working with the clients they're comfortable with and then the people are stuck on the wait list.

So they get the 26 sessions and then we always make sure we have a referral or they can go back on our wait list or if they want to keep going and they can kind of indicate Well, I know where I'm at. This is what I want to keep working on I just kind of discovered this then they can usually have more sessions. It's kind of discretionary and then we also kind of suggest that they might join a group which is it's more structured because Like I don't run like drop-in groups, but we'll have groups of eight ish

people, eight guys, and then usually me or someone else and a student. And those are more rigid, two hours once a week, eight week cycle. So there it's the same group of guys. I think with this type of trauma, there's a lot of attachment work that needs to be done. And a therapist, I don't think can fully do that. So I think running those groups is just probably one of the most privileged things I've ever gotten to do. Cause you get guys that are ready to be vulnerable and they start to realize they're.

they shouldn't hate themselves as much as they do because they're not hating these other guys. So it's kind of a cool thing to witness, but that's a bit more structured. And then we do have our victim service team as well that kind of helps with resource allocation, if they might be eligible for certain funding streams, stuff like that, as well as just kind of emotional help while they're on the wait list. But our wait list is pretty quick to turn over now. But that's one thing I like about the agency is like all the all the therapists practice different.

Like we all have kind of different approaches, styles. And we try to match the client with that, but everyone follows the same kind of the 26 sessions and tries to contain it as much as we can. yeah, that's partially why I kind of changed that policy is to make sure the client did have a sense of like, how long do we have left? What are we doing here? What are we accomplishing? And obviously the client doesn't have to use the 26 if they don't, but most of them do.

Pat Tenneriello (21:47)
Okay.

so that there's some similarities to the program in Ottawa where there's a combination of one-to-one therapy and group therapy. And there's benefits and drawbacks to both of those types of therapies. I also got a lot out of the group therapy, the breadth of the group therapy and feeling like I wasn't alone. Like I could relate to some of these guys that I could feel like.

grateful in a sense because some of these guys had it a lot worse than I did. And so I really appreciate a group and group, guess at some point you graduated from group, gave like what they called your testimony when you were ready. Do you guys do something similar or when does someone like decide that they no longer want to be a part of group?

Mason Shell (22:37)
Well, the group, it's an eight week cycle, so they know there's a start date and they know the last day of it. So usually by the end of that, people are like, okay, that was intense. I try to normalize that it's also healthy to be able to kind of take a break from it. They can always come back and if they want to join another group, it'll be different guys. It might be a different vibe.

And I'm always shy, or I always try to shy away from anything that feels like we're applying pressure to clients. So with group, I have kind of my spiel at the start, but I explain that some folks might want to share their story, others might not. Usually once one person shares, it kind of gets the ball rolling, but we're pretty structured with that. I always tell them before we jump into that type of share,

you have to be able to articulate like, what are you wanting to get out of it? How do you want us to support? Do you want people kind of passing you the Kleenex if you're like freaking out a bit or do you just want the space? Like everyone's different. So trying to give them as much control of that sharing process as possible. And we also don't, we try not to do that on the first day of group because...

Pat Tenneriello (23:35)
.

Mason Shell (23:45)
people can get in their heads and they don't know the guys and they haven't slept on it. So they can leave and be like, man, I'm the only one and I overshared what's wrong with me. even in this group, I'm the odd one out, which is a very normal thing to feel as well. But yeah, we don't necessarily have like a graduation, but most people, once they do a group cycle, they're kind of like, that's good for now. And then a year or two later, they might come back because they missed it or they want a different experience.

Pat Tenneriello (24:08)
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I can relate to some of those internal voices in my head as I was going through group. would love to hear of any stories of impact that the organization has had on individuals. If you could share, obviously anonymously.

Mason Shell (24:24)
Yeah, I mean, it's pretty far reaching, which is interesting. Because we're revamping our client feedback form and they can submit it anonymously or put their name on it and stuff. And kind of the thing that we get told most, and it might be a bit of selection bias because the people who really want to give us the feedback are passionate about it. But we hear a lot of like, I don't think I would be around if I didn't have that place. Or I never knew a place like this existed and it completely changed.

kind of their sense of being alone or their sense of being stuck. So that's mostly what we hear. Also kind of a being more comfortable with their own sense of masculinity, oftentimes sexuality as well. We have a lot of clients that struggle with that and they attribute it to abuse and stuff. So just giving them the space to, I think, again, have that little version of themselves witnessed. And I do think people can do that wrong. You don't want to be in the kid's shoes, but you do want to be

the healthy adults standing and being able to see what's going on and kind of pseudo offering as much support as you can. But it helps these guys, I think, feel just less alone in it. That's one of the things that I have to keep reminding myself that a lot of guys are feeling is like, I thought I was the only one. Or I felt really like isolated and alone because I'm so used to talking with guys. I'm like, well, that doesn't make any sense. There's a ton of you guys out there, a ton of us there. that seems to be one of the things that really kicks in. So I think a lot of this type of work is...

just holding that space for them, giving them control to see what they're struggling with and what they're relating that to. And there's been a lot of clients that have said it's what's kind of kept them alive, basically. They were kind of at their wits end. They were in the hospital or they were referred to us and they were like, sure, I might as well try it and see. Which again, very rewarding,

Pat Tenneriello (26:08)
that's powerful to hear about the feedback that some of these people may not be there if it wasn't for the program.

Mason Shell (26:16)
I've worked with clients as well that brought them to the hospital and stuff when they're in their lowest and being able to see them now in healthy relationships and ones engaged. I'm like, I was like, remember meeting you when just the thought of talking about your family was so overwhelming that you shut down and had like, you just dissociated and now he's alive and well and stuff. I know that he would definitely say that like without this, he would probably have ended it.

And substance use as well. think a lot of guys, even if they're not going to go to suicide, they're going to kind of drown it out in other ways.

Pat Tenneriello (26:53)
makes me think of kind of the personal, the goals that I had set for myself when I started the program. One was my relationship with drugs and alcohol. Two was fear of commitment. I guess it ties into sexuality, but it just like, just serial dating, just like fear of commitment.

that being disconnected with my life goals of wanting a family, wanting to have children and wanting to settle down, but my actions, my everyday actions just not aligning with that. So that was a really important one. then the third one was facing my perpetrator, but that sort of evolved as I went through the program. where a lot of the gratefulness for the program came from is that it really realigned those for me and

Today I'm married and I have a kid. So I was able to work through those things.

Mason Shell (27:42)
Well, it's good to hear.

It just makes a lot of sense that once this stuff is talked about, like I like you use the term, like your everyday actions or behaviors were like not working towards goals. Like I use the term like ideal discrepancy. think we all have like an ideal of ourselves and then we're, we want to be working through that. and that's the way that I also can challenge clients. Cause I'll be like, look, I don't care that you relapsed and did meth or whatever it was, but you did say that this is your ideal and this is working against that. So it gives you an end to actually be able to hold accountability

without kind of shaming people. But that's something we hear a lot is people have like a value system or a sense of who they want to be and the behavior is just so discrepant from it. And that can be for all sorts of reasons, but it's pretty common thing that we talk.

Pat Tenneriello (28:28)
word that important to me going through the program was integrity. It's like those daily actions, not aligned with my fundamental values. I wasn't living from a place of integrity, how I thought about integrity and I would justify it and do these mental hoops in my head to say, yeah, this behavior is fine. But really, I wasn't living a life of integrity.

that stuck with me, the other concept was love for future self. It's like the decisions that I make today, future Pat is gonna thank me. And that concept helped kind of like empower me to try and make better decisions every day.

Mason Shell (29:07)
And it sounds like it's led you too to kind of want to give back and have this topic more talked about. I mean, obviously I think that's why we're here, but it's nice to hear kind of went through your own journey and it probably resonates for a lot of people to like be able to hear that.

Pat Tenneriello (29:20)
That's it. And, you know, maybe I'm thinking from a listener perspective now, like if there may be listeners who have never thought it's ever popped to their mind that they may, they may have suffered some trauma or maybe they have suffered trauma, but they just haven't taken any action. And it's something that they know they probably should.

what would you recommend for someone like that listening?

Mason Shell (29:40)
Well, if the question you're asking resonates for folks, that's important evidence just for them. Because a lot of people don't have a clear memory, they have a vague sense, they don't think people are going to believe them.

But if you're hearing kind of the sense of like, hey, maybe something is going on or this seems to hit something, it's making me uncomfortable. that is likely your nervous system kind of saying like, yeah, maybe we should at least look into this a little bit. I never think it has to be this huge. Like I'm a very optimistic and playful and hopeful therapist. And sometimes I think when people are like, no, I have to look into this darkness. Like.

I'm, I don't know if we can swear, but like I'm aft like I'm now I'm screwed. And I'm just like, I would, I would frame it as like, once you get the ball rolling, I think like a lot of things, it's like exposure therapy in a way. If you're, if you're afraid of spiders and you always avoid them, you're always going to be able to imagine being afraid of spiders. But if you're thrown into it, you're kind of, your nervous system will adjust. And with trauma too, I think people can learn to find almost comfort or at least peace with it.

And that opens them up to be playful with again, whatever those talons are, whatever things they aren't doing what they want to do. But if people are listening and this stuff's resonating then unfortunately, there aren't a tremendous amount of resources. Like that's one of the tough things for male survivors. If you're in an area where there isn't really anyone to talk to or anything, I would suggest just looking into like the one in six.org. Again, they've got anonymous groups, they've got a ton of resources, people's maybe starting there. If they're in

British Columbia, they can reach out to us, but we can only work with people that are BC residents.

But yeah, and there's a lot of good books out there and stuff too. Again, a lot of them are listed on that oneinsix.org. But Victims No Longer is a really good one to do with a childhood survivor who went through it and kind of mapped out how that journey can look. So if you're not comfortable reaching out to people or having to sit face to face just yet, there's a lot of resources to slowly see if it's something you want to pursue. And then the other thing I would say is a lot of private therapists as well, even if there isn't a center specifically like ours.

are going to be comfortable working with kind of the patterns of trauma. So just if they're not a specialist, they can still likely be helpful. But I remind people of this all the time, the therapist works for you. And if you're going in with like a shame feeling, like I don't deserve to be here, I'm not good enough, it's very easy to start going into that people-pleasing and just kind of wanting the therapist to like you or wanting to be a good client. But if you can't stand the therapist or it's going nowhere,

just call them out or fire them or move on because I've seen clients go through all of our sessions and then they'll reach out and be like, yeah, I don't think that was a good fit. And I'm like, well, you didn't have to go through all 26 with that person. yeah, I know that person. It probably isn't a good fit, but I find a lot of clients are almost shy to kind of advocate for themselves. So I always kind of front loaded with like, look, if you hate me after you first meet me, like that's totally fine. I've been fired before for, they found out I wasn't gay. They saw a picture of my wife and I, they're like,

Pat Tenneriello (32:23)
.

Hmm.

Mason Shell (32:43)
Wait, what? Sorry. So there's lots of reasons it's not going to be a good fit. But if you find the right fit and they're able to hold the space to make sure that you're telling them what you want to improve in your present and what you want to get by looking back at your past.

Pat Tenneriello (32:44)
You

when you have a new inquiry, like how does that matching process work?

Mason Shell (33:03)
Yeah, we have 11 therapists. mean, again, a lot of them have other jobs and stuff. they're here a few days a week or whatever, and they kind of control their own schedules. But they're all on our website. So when my victim service team is doing an intake, they will basically be like, hey, we're going to follow up after this and get the ball rolling on setting you up with someone. Can you look at the website and let us know if there's anyone specific that you want to work with?

And then we do the best we can with people's availability. And our therapists do, like they get to look over the intake. So our therapists aren't meeting people like the front line, that's our victim service team. So when the clients come in, they've already done that intake. We already kind of know if they're eligible for funding, what they can pay, what their schedule's like. And then we just do our best to map it out. It's very rare, but we do have some clients that are like, absolutely need to work with a gay man or absolutely need to work with a woman.

those instances we flag those and try to try to pass them as best as we can but it's an imperfect system

Pat Tenneriello (34:03)
Okay.

you see that childhood trauma, addressing childhood trauma ties in with personal growth and the pursuit of meaning and purpose?

Mason Shell (34:16)
I think trauma is a Trojan horse way of being able to work on this stuff. and I think sometimes people have the misconception that when we're like an agency like ours, like we've got the 26 sessions and some clients go over and stuff like that, it's not all we're gonna go back to that story and we're gonna do that inner child work. It is a lot of like what's going on day to day, what they're struggling.

And that's why use that metaphor of the talons, because you have to oscillate between the present. So a person feels like there's movement and also the past. So they can kind of bridge that trauma. And I think trauma is going to, in my view, almost slowly lose its value as a word, because there's so many things from our past that people can say are traumatic and, or they define as traumatic. And some of them are, but it's, I've had clients that are traumatized from things that I don't think I would even remember in my own.

history and then I have clients who've been through completely terrible things and I'll be like, well, like, are you okay with that? And they're like, yeah, I'm fine. I got my piece with it. I'm like, okay. So it's not up to us to define whether they're supposed to be traumatized or not. And that's an important piece that I think people don't think too much about. But I think unpacking childhood trauma forces us into a vulnerable, self-aware, self-reflective place in the nervous system and in the body.

And I think good trauma work kind of allows the client to be more aware of their patterns, to have more integrity, to kind of hold themselves accountable. Also to be able to start working on just awareness in the body and having compassion for non-productive downtime, all these things. So I think people can be really, really hard on themselves. Like that shame piece is probably the biggest one that comes up with childhood trauma. And then I think that shame piece bleeds into how people move through the world and...

Allowing them to realize where that might have originated from I think loosens up their ability to be like okay. Well now I'm gonna challenge it Otherwise, it can just stay in that shame cycle and they're just beating themselves up, but there's no compassionate angle to it so yeah, think like it's very tough for me to like I'll work with a private client who's like I'm coming in because this relationship problem and almost always we end up tying it back to family and these

these patterns. don't think we just are teleported and we just exist today. So most people do relate it to childhood, family, different things, specifically indicating it as trauma or not. So I think that to me, they're completely enmeshed. I think they just go hand in hand.

Pat Tenneriello (36:38)
before the program, I feel like I'd never really asked myself, how are you feeling today? Or if you start therapy, how are doing today? how you feel and like to kind of go introspectively and like, just take some time to think about how I'm feeling. And then I'd never done that before. So that in itself was such a, just a new experience, to just take the time to check in. So.

I can relate to what you're saying. And maybe as men too, that's something that we just don't take the time to do that because it's not that important. Or maybe we just don't want to.

Mason Shell (37:08)
It's amazing though, because every client that I get to a certain place with where they're acknowledging that lack of kind of, I don't necessarily know if it's self-awareness. It's almost just not considering it. And almost, I would guess a hundred percent, like when they talk about, well, if I was encouraged to do more of this when I was younger, that would have been very helpful. So I think a lot of men are just coached in the family to be like,

the hell? Like, why are you crying? Like, just go mow the yard or something. like there isn't the sense of like a person's internal struggles. And I think one of the biggest things and Gabor Matei writes about this and talks about it, he's, he filters it through addiction. But one of the things that always stuck with me that I kind of came to just by working with clients is this gap between authenticity and attachment.

especially if your abuser is someone who kind of groomed or they had a position of power or they were someone that you relied on to kind of survive. So if the abuser is the dad, you can't go against that because you need dad to pay the bills and give you food and all that. So there's a sense of because that attachment has to take priority, the young person learns to kind of shelf their authenticity. They're not allowed to feel how they're feeling. They're not, there's no space for it. So the only way they can cope is to

kind of people please placate, dismiss their own stuff. And I think that pattern is one of the deepest ones, along with the kind of inability to feel playful because of vigilance. But I think those things really create long-term patterns for people where a lot of men are just uncomfortable accepting that they're feeling something or asking for help. And if they are feeling something, they feel like, if I say that to someone, they're going to socially reject me. This is what I think this is I was talking about with the relationship stuff.

is like if they know this about me they will leave and I think that's like a deep attachment wound that especially with grooming in childhood trauma comes up quite a bit.

Pat Tenneriello (39:02)
Hmm.

The concept of the abandoning authority was one that also stuck with me. who was the authority there and where were they? you take a step back and remove myself from the actual traumatic moment and realize, yeah, I was five. How was I supposed to be the authority? So that triangle, I can't remember the name for it, but it was like the, maybe the trauma triangle they called it. I don't know if you guys.

work with that.

Mason Shell (39:30)
probably see it but I don't know. I'm sure we.

Pat Tenneriello (39:32)
It was like the perpetrator,

the victim, and then the abandoning authority, was, who should have been there to take care of you when you couldn't take care of yourself.

Mason Shell (39:36)
Hmm

Yeah.

Yeah. Some of the most meaningful conversations I've had with people is to once the person kind of is familiar with the story, we've talked about it a bit. They're not like I think any time you're going into one of these stories, if the person's overwhelmed or they're completely dissociated, like you want to just bring them back in the present, you don't want to keep exploring it. They need to be like grounded. But once they're at a certain place of like calmness with it.

is to be like, okay, well, the man I'm talking to now and me, what if we could teleport back right when that kid was going through that and be able to kind of freeze time and just offer them support? What would you say? What would you have needed at that point? And I've seen a lot of guys really struggle with that because they didn't have that type of support, but they recognize like,

One, think it shows that they've matured and healed because they know what they needed and they know what they could have offered. But it can also bring up a lot of anger and frustration at that lack of authority supporting. I'm working on that with a few clients right now where they're like, I've always hated dad for this, but where the hell was mom? She must have known something was happening and now she denies it and stuff. So I think that really messes with people as well.

Pat Tenneriello (40:48)
understanding of masculinity in our society, like how does it help or hinder the work that you guys do

Mason Shell (40:55)
most of clients, I think struggle with masculinity. or they kind of struggle with it and then hypercompensate in some way. Like, I don't know, some big, roided out guy who objectifies women or something. he's just like, we do run into that type of like, like, I guess I would say traditional masculinity. I think is, I think it's like one of these things though, where as soon as that conversation is broached.

you get in and you can start to be like, well, where did you get that concept of masculinity from? Because most guys that I've worked with, they don't love the concept of masculinity that they have, or they feel like they're falling short of it. So if they're able to connect that to too much media, my dad was that way and he's an asshole or whatever it is. There's a lot of guys that once you start to challenge where they're getting that concept of masculinity from, I think it invites them to like...

be a bit more assertive and kind of reframe masculinity. Because we have such a diverse team too, we all talk about it quite differently. Like I have one of my therapists is just a very feminine young woman and she can't do the things I would do when we're talking about masculinity. Because I can joke and be like, I'm a masculine guy, I work out but I also cry and I cuddle my cats. And then it kind of gives them this in of like, it's confident for him to say that it's not a masculine.

But I find that most of our clients kind of struggle with feeling like they're not meeting that. So inviting them to be playful again, like I think all this comes down to being playful and not taking it too seriously, essentially. And I don't mean to be callous, obviously it's a serious topic, but the way that they can kind of engage with the outcomes of it. And it comes up a lot in group as well. I think there's a, usually that first session of group, there's a bit of posturing or.

Everyone's a bit on guard and stuff. And then as it goes, they start to kind of be able to kind of tease and laugh with one another. yeah, it comes up a lot, especially I think there's a like a demographic difference as well. I find a lot of our gay clients are it's a bit easier for them to like not have to be in the traditional masculine kind of the way the 1950s type stuff. And a lot of our younger clients, they're obviously a bit more, I maybe not obviously, but they're a bit more like

fluid and flexible with what that's supposed to mean. Whereas like my oldest clients push an 80 and very, very old school way of looking at it. yeah, it really depends, but it comes up almost a hundred percent of the time. I mean, maybe not a hundred, but it comes up all the

Pat Tenneriello (43:17)
And you may have seen the name of this podcast is after Peter Pan. where that comes from is my personal kind of growing up story and how I feel like I was in the Peter Pan syndrome for a long time, or I just didn't want to grow up, didn't want to take on responsibility and kind of lived in that short-term gratification place for a long time. I'm wondering, did you feel like you come across a lot of Peter Pan syndrome?

in, in the program.

Mason Shell (43:44)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I would say so. I don't know if they're, they'd all be kind of as aware as the way you're talking about it. And I guess that's kind of the growth through it. But we have a lot of clients and, some of it does overlap with like diagnosable personality disorder and stuff. But one of the biggest things that we struggle with is a sense of, again, trauma comes from a lack of control. So a lot of ways people compensate is to have control or that immediate gratification type thing. And a lot of clients will focus on trying to achieve that control.

by trying to work against these big systems like the police or judges and stuff. So there's a sense of they don't want to be held accountable for the things that they've done. And I know like they've all been through stuff, but a lot of them have also gone on to cause irreparable harm to other people. And I find some people do end up kind of excusing themselves from that because they're like, well, I was hurt when I was young, therefore I kind of have a pass

And that can be really tough, especially depending on the personality type. But we definitely deal with a lot of guys that don't want to kind of have to accept certain things. They don't want to have to move on or they want to lean on all the people around them. And then they're confused as to why those people start to distance from them, which is tough to see. again, like when I'm talking with someone who's kind of in that head space, they're, not really aware of it. And, and it's a, it's a delicate line to walk, to not just call them out basically and be like, look, this is clearly not worth

for you. And then yeah, there's, there are some too that I think there's, there's almost like a stall development, not to be callous, but a sense of like, I still feel like I'm like a 13 year old. And like, when I see myself in the mirror, I know I'm an adult and walking down the street, I feel like people know I'm immature. So there is some of that that comes up too.

Pat Tenneriello (45:26)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mason Shell (45:29)
that's a tough thing too, because I also don't really want to grow up. I'm like, is is a sense of like, again, being playful and stuff, I think is paramount. And I think a lot of men lose that. So there's a teeter totter there for me. So I wouldn't want I wouldn't want a guy who's too playful and too like going by the seat of his pants type thing to then be like, well, now the pendulum has to go the opposite direction and I can never have fun again. It's all going to be serious and discipline. I think we need a bit of both.

Pat Tenneriello (45:33)
Yeah.

which participant or patient in the program, what sort of mindset has the best outcome, the most successful outcome? And are there patients who you see or go through the program and just like nothing?

Mason Shell (45:58)
Thank

Pat Tenneriello (46:12)
Like no growth

Mason Shell (46:13)
definitely. And it's one of the perks of being the director here, because it's not just my clients. I kind of just have hundreds of clients to kind of siphon my own data through. And again, it's tough, but there is a big overlap with personality disorder. And if you're working with a client where it's always the system, or it's their fault, or they did the bad thing, and I haven't done anything wrong, why does the world treat me this way?

very tough for them to kind of start to take ownership or start to realize that in order to feel empowered, they actually have to change things. Those clients, there is a sense of like, I will be happy if my perpetrator is held accountable. And I'm like, you were abused once when you were four, the courts are not going to, like, just isn't gonna happen. And that's tough to say. And there are certain instances and stuff like that. And I'm a consultant for...

different law firms but it's almost always class actions and stuff but the clients that get locked into they they need the outcome to be a certain way and it's based on other people they are the ones that get kind of caught in a loop because there's nothing they can actually do to assert a sense of control over that story. I do have ways I work with them. I use the expression you can control the gesture not the outcome so if you want to file a police report if you want to write a letter to the perpetrator

that gesture is the important empowering piece, but we cannot need it to have a certain outcome because if that outcome then goes sideways, and I usually have a sense of like, this is not going to give them what they want, but at least I can kind of help a client understand while I'm doing everything I can, I'm crossing the T's, dotting my I's, I'm controlling that gesture without being reliant on a certain outcome. And really intense substance use, like we don't have in-house substance stuff, but some of those clients are

of slip away, they stop showing up or they're in a haze when they're in or some of them have shown up high or whatever and it's like you can't really do the work when the brain's blocking that off. And then the overlap with delusions and psychosis. I mean it sucks and it's kind of its own can of worms. It correlates and overlaps with childhood trauma but like if you're working with a client who's

who's mostly like hearing people in the walls and having these kinds of episodes, it's a different type of work. We'll still work with them and it's mostly about grounding and stuff, but they're not gonna come to the same sort of clarity or anything. So, and in terms of the people that I think do get the most out of it, there is a sense of, know I've been through stuff and I want to have that kind of witnessed and I want to understand the impact it had on me, but I also want this to be useful. I wanna be moving forward and I wanna be able to know that something has changed for me.

and gratitude as well. think like some of the clients we have just, mean, God bless them, but they can be so ruthless or kind of cruel because we're working for them and they're like, you're supposed to be doing this or that. And I'm like, it's hard work and like myself and my team are all people. So I just think that they don't have to express gratitude all the time, but a sense of like, hey, these people are trying to help. I assume their intentions are positive.

and I will do my best to work with that patiently. Because some clients assume that if I'm sick or something, I'm purposely abandoning them. I'm like, I do exist outside of this office. But again, think that's a big overlap with personality disorders, which again, society still struggles to figure out exactly what to do with that type of personality.

Pat Tenneriello (49:32)
Hmm.

Got it.

Mason Shell (49:37)
Or

if it's a bad fit with the therapist. Like some of those guys just kind of wait it out because they don't realize they can shift and stuff. So we try to clarify that pretty early on.

Pat Tenneriello (49:47)
I remember sometimes in the program, both in group and one-on-one, would get frustrated because we would talk about something more in theory or in abstract. I was always looking for tools to add to my toolbox to fix it. Sometimes it would get too abstract. Sometimes there were no tools. It was just talking through it. I don't know if that's a common frustration that you see in some participants or patients.

Mason Shell (50:14)
Yeah, yeah. I like one of my favorite stories was I was going through the just our consent confidentiality form. And the person's like, how long is this going to take? And I was like, it's just a couple minutes type thing. And they just were so relaxed. And they're like, okay, so like, what do I do? And I was like, what do you mean? They're like, well, you said it was only going to take a couple minutes. And I thought they meant the form, but they meant like, until I'm perfect. And I was just like, okay, this is going to take a while to unwork that. It is one of my frustrations in

Pat Tenneriello (50:36)
Yeah

Mason Shell (50:43)
in the field of just psychotherapy is again, like I said at the start, like I don't want a client to leave and be like, I think Mason's cool. I like talking with him. I feel like he's listening, but what the hell am I doing? Like, how is this helping me? Like what's practically happening? So I do think good therapy oscillates between again, the pragmatic and kind of the more like witnessing and listening and stuff. I, the tools that I've developed for my clients mostly come from working with

clients. I'm not pulling them from a book or anything. I think that can be helpful because they only come up when they feel very pointed. But I think also therapy should be checking in with the client and be like, hey, what do you want to talk about in the client? be like, oh, I don't know. And they're kind of meandering. It's like, well, what was your most distressing moment in the couple weeks? When did you feel the least proud of yourself, the most shame? Going from there and then trying to excavate, how did you interact with that? What's your awareness around it?

But I, yeah, that frustration is there a lot. And there are clients that when they realize it's not just some quick fix and they don't kind of see the beauty in the journey, then they can get pretty frustrated and be like, you don't know what you're fucking doing. It's like, okay, well, you held onto this for 40 years. It's going to take more than a few minutes to kind of unpack it.

Pat Tenneriello (51:54)
.

the other side of that, knowing that journey's the journey. personal growth never ends. therapy in perpetuity probably isn't necessarily the right approach either. You talked about having 26 sessions, at least kind of as a base and then people will oscillate.

have any sort of guidance for people? Like someone like me, I went through this program, it was five or six years ago. It's been a while, a lot of things in life have changed. I'm a dad now, I'm a husband. Like, and so I've thought about like maybe doing a few, bit of therapy could, could be a good thing. I can't see any downside to it. Like, do you have, do you have any recommendations on when people should kind of check in with therapy throughout as life progresses?

Mason Shell (52:39)
Yeah, I think, again, if you have a good fit with a therapist and they're sincere and they're kind trying to work on whatever you want to work on, I think that's healthy. I think most of us in the field do our own therapy just to kind of check in and see what's going on. But I think that that has to be very client driven and curiosity focused because a lot of clients, again, that come in, especially

working with us, there's a sense of I have to do this or else like I'm screwed or everything is going to be devastating. So I need to figure something out. There's a pressured kind of impetus to it. And I think once clients stabilize, like I've worked with lots of clients here that I saw for the 26 and I see them privately, but it's once every month or once every couple of months. And it's more just checking in. They know that I know them. They know that there's a sense of like, Hey, this is coming up. I just want to be able to talk it through.

which I think is healthy, but I don't like the idea that people feel like they have to be in therapy. A lot of people like, they're like, I was so messed up before and therapy helped. Now I'm scared to lose that. And I think that as long as there's a sense of like, I know why I'm doing this now. And I also encourage people to be able to take breaks from therapy and be very curious as to what's going on day to day, how it's working, if you feel overwhelmed, if you're missing that.

But yeah, I don't like the idea that especially with some of our clients who are a bit like, I mean, maybe lower functioning, that might be a bit callous, but they're, really dependent on systems and kind of disability and stuff. think a therapist can just kind of run out the clock week after week. And for some clients, that's kind of what they need. But as long as the therapist is checking in, like all, if I notice a client's kind of just recapping their week, I will, I'll just bring that up and be like, Hey, like.

Pat Tenneriello (54:11)
Hmm.

Mason Shell (54:24)
So what is it we actually want to work on? Because we can just kind of check in, see how your week's been, and then the hour's almost gone. But what do you want to focus in on? As long as the therapist or the client is able to pull that in, then yeah, I think it's healthy to be able to talk to people, especially when we're all hiding in our apartments and stuff. I think it's good to just have that type of connection.

Pat Tenneriello (54:44)
Do you think there's a place for like life coaches or sort of these alternative forms of therapy?

Mason Shell (54:51)
Yeah, I mean, I do. Again, I think it just depends on the person and what they're espousing and what they're claiming they can do. I think a big part of this work is you can't over promise. Like I'm confident in what I do and how I approach it. And I've seen lots of good outcomes, but I can't meet a client and be like, guaranteed in a hundred days, you're going to be this, this, this. like, can't afford to give them their money back. But like that's a...

Pat Tenneriello (55:13)
your money back.

Mason Shell (55:18)
So there is that element to it. And I know people in the field who consider themselves a life coach and stuff, and I get why they shift towards it. It's a bit, it feels a bit less kind of hand holding and kind of going slow and doing the witnessing of the inner child and stuff. And a bit more of like, Hey, this is what you're saying you want to do. Here are some ways to do it. The way I work would kind of be a blend of both. I mean, I certainly make sure it's mostly about the emotional and

what their past is and how they're connecting it. But I'm just like a very disciplined person myself. And I think my clients do enjoy that like I hold us accountable. Like I want to be proud of the work we're doing rather than feeling like what the hell did we just do? Was that a waste of their hour? So I do think there's kind of room for both. But there's also, think probably a lot of charlatans out there that don't have any credentials and they just want to kind of take advantage maliciously or not. So.

But I do think there's space for it. I know a few people that I think are very helpful to people, and then I know a few people that are probably just trying to get some money. So it really depends on the case, I think.

Pat Tenneriello (56:23)
Yeah. Well,

that's really helpful advice actually, because like I remember when I was looking for help and I started Googling, I had a few conversations, like little mini interviews with some therapists. And then, and then I stumbled on men and healing and I thought, well, this, this is perfect. now if I were to go back and say, okay, I'm going to do some therapy, you know, um, I don't think I would necessarily go back to the men and healing program. Cause I feel like

I don't know. feel like I'm ready for whatever the next phase is. And I wouldn't necessarily know which resources are out there to find the right therapist. And, know, it's expensive. Like I don't, I don't have any of those benefits at work or anything like that. So it'd be paying out of pocket and there's sort of a lack of trust. I don't, I wouldn't really know where to look. so

Are there really good resources out there, the trusted resources that people could turn to when they're looking for the right sort of therapy, like beyond just childhood trauma or sexual abuse?

Mason Shell (57:20)
Well, I mean, it's kind of like, I guess it's like going on like a first date. it's like the, the Tinder profile, whatever, can look a certain way. But until you meet the person, it's gonna be really tough. But I think like I was saying earlier, like using or extending this probably bad metaphor, but if someone goes on a Tinder date and they feel like, well, I have to keep seeing this person now.

I would challenge that. would go in to your first session, knowing what it is you're wanting to work on and being comfortable with course correcting the therapist if they shift into what they're comfortable with. If you want to work on anxiety and they start shifting into like, what was your mom like? And you're like, I've already unpacked that. It's not really what I'm focused on. I just want tools to deal with this type of anxiety. It's incumbent then on the therapist to kind of match that or be like, I don't know how to help you. But I do think that the

because therapy is such a vulnerable kind of thing, I think a lot of clients, again, feel like, well, I'm not the expert, they are, so I'll take their lead. And I'm like, well, take the lead of whatever you're needing to get out of it. Like if you're going in with specific things to make sure that that is front and center. And there's just resources all over that are probably good and some probably that aren't. I mean, like in BC, there's the, registry, people go through, they look at what therapists say about themselves, they see which ones click.

But yeah, I'm not, I'm not aware of any like specifically curated kind of, know for sure that these people are good. Um, and I would also take, uh, take clinicians up most of the time if they say this is their session rate, like that, yada, yada, you sign the thing. But I think a lot of clients can pretty easily be like, Hey, can we have like a 20 minute consult before kind of confirming that we're doing it? And that'll at least give you a sense of it. And if the therapist says no,

Pat Tenneriello (59:02)
Yeah.

Mason Shell (59:04)
That's maybe not a red flag, but a bit of an orange flag for me, because if they're going to get into this with someone, they should be able to kind of at least go on that first date, so to speak.

Pat Tenneriello (59:15)
shame and guilt being two emotions that I can't remember if they call them the master emotions, but they were like, they came up a lot in the work. why are shame and guilt such significant barriers for survivors? Why are they so important in therapy?

Mason Shell (59:29)
Well, they're inherently social mechanics in the human nervous system. Shame and guilt don't exist without imagining someone seeing you do something or without thinking if they told someone they would judge you or I just did this and I feel incongruent with that ideal like I was talking about, like, I'm moving away from who I say I want to be. I that invokes a sense of shame.

I believe that shame, particularly in childhood sexual abuse, is enhanced in people. And I can quickly walk through why I believe that to be the case. particularly if the person goes through grooming, which is the person's kind of pulled them in and they made the kid feel special, the kid might not have certain attention at home, other siblings might outshine them or something, so they can gravitate towards one of these abusers. And at that age, if you're anywhere like four to 12 or whatever,

Like it's really hard for a kid to not be like egocentric, to not view things completely from their own perspective. In fact, the mechanics of that don't really develop until a bit later. So there's a lot of like, well, that person brought me in, they treated me well. This was fun. This was exploratory. This was playful. All the things that I think people should reclaim by doing trauma work. And then something sexual or something weird or bad happens. And then the person saying things like,

You can't tell anyone, like, this is our secret. so I think a young person kind of through empathy picks up on that feeling of shame. And at that age, they can't help but think that they were to blame. can't like, they're just, they're not wired to actually understand it might be that person's fault. So they build an understanding of I must have done something bad. I think it's the most insidious part of childhood trauma because it also, I think, informs why intimacy,

sexuality, all these things can be triggers because they can bring up that shame response. So it's not just like you're triggered by a car backfiring after coming back from the war. Like you can be triggered by someone telling you they love you type idea because there's a sense of like, I'm going to lose this or do they really, or did I do something bad? Working practically with clients around guilt and shame. I always try to get clients to be able to differentiate them because they feel very similar. I I would frame it as

guilt is I did something bad, therefore, so I can make amends, I can write that letter, I can tell them, I can apologize, where shame is I've done something bad, whether it's a memory or something else, but therefore I am a bad person and I am unlovable. So I think shame is kind of an extension of what guilt can be. think guilt can be pretty useful and shame can be useful if it's unpacked and explored, but otherwise, shame's really sticky and it's uncomfortable, so it...

Pat Tenneriello (1:01:46)
you

Mm.

Mason Shell (1:02:10)
most people aren't thinking they're ashamed of themselves, but their life's being governed by that sense of shame. So, but I think there's a, that's like a quick explanation. I think that's a lot of why you almost always see some sense of shame with childhood trauma. Cause I'm, I use the term inherited shame. Like you inherited that feeling from the abuser in some way. And it's tough. It's kind of one of the grossest feeling things. And I've heard clients,

define it or talk about it in so many different ways. And it's this kind of amalgamous thing that's hard to nail down, but, it can be healthy. I think some of my clients have done things. like, yeah, that shame feels appropriate. You kind of should have to make amends. But then I try to pivot that into guilt. So it's, they're not just a holistically terrible person. just did something that they were.

Pat Tenneriello (1:02:54)
lot of emotions are really tough to kind of tell the difference. Shame and guilt or for me it was

excitement, like being excited and being anxious. Like not all the energy in my body. It's like, it's tough to tell the difference.

Mason Shell (1:03:08)
Yeah, yeah. I think like I joke with clients all the time that like all this stuff is pre-linguistic. we don't, words are going to fall short all the time for how we're trying to describe certain ways of feeling. And yeah, I think nervousness and excitement go hand in hand. Like I talk about three A's of anxiety, like anticipation, actual aftermath. And that anticipation phase, if someone's really confident, they might be chomping at the bit, but if they're really anxious, they might be like catastrophizing.

then the actual whatever job interview or whatever happens comes and goes really quick. Then the aftermath, there's almost always some sense of relief. mean, humans would rather get an electric shock than wait for it. It's less stressful on us. So, that's just like one example, but I think there's lots of ways that we conflate or try to decipher what we're feeling. And that's why, like when we were talking about modalities and the idea of being eclectic and drawing from different things.

One of the things I do, like I was saying, is externalize. So if someone's talking about it as shame, I get them to name it. Like that would be like a homework thing is like, what would you call this? Can you bring it into the room and allow it to be a roommate? Can you start dialoguing with it? Someone very close to me, kind of the reason I got into the field to begin with, she's really struggling with anxiety. And I started to realize like, if we focus on what you're anxious about all the time,

Pat Tenneriello (1:04:00)
Yeah.

Mason Shell (1:04:29)
each day is going to give you ammunition for that. instead it's like, why don't we focus on how we interface with the anxiety itself. But that also kind of elicited a sense of shame. It's like, well, that's your anxiety. There's something bad about you. So we just started calling the anxiety Frank. And I was like, Hey, it feels like Frank's here. And then it becomes a lighter, more playful thing. And it allowed them to come and be like, God damn it, Frank's here again. And then we both know what that means. You get to talk about it.

I think that helps people in relationships too, to be able to broach these things without feeling like they're the burden this one. So yeah, there's lots of ways I think to attach words and meaning and especially with trauma work where it comes from them not having control to offer the client a sense of control over what they want to call these things. Like one of my clients called his anger, Vengie for vengeance. My clients have called their depression, the beast, their anxiety, venom, the sticky thing that they're stuck with.

it becomes a lot more creative and personalized, I think. So that's how I try to move away from just the clinical kind of Western language around it. Cause I think that that can just come across as patronizing.

Pat Tenneriello (1:05:31)
I feel like your approach is unique, like the playfulness and the humor that I'm feeling throughout this conversation. My experience with my therapy, while it was effective, it was pretty serious, I would say. And maybe because I brought seriousness to it, but would you say that your approach is pretty unique?

Mason Shell (1:05:49)
Yeah, I think my approach also is, it came from kind of being thrown in the deep end. When I just think like it's just the way my personality is and I'm harder on myself than I could be on other people and whatever. I mean, we're all that way I think, but there's a sense of, because I think playfulness is one of the things that is stolen when someone is being abused, making sure that them processing that abuse can feel playful, I think is important.

I'm certainly able to sit and have tears come up when we're really sitting in the darkness with clients. But I think more generally, the goal is going from pressured, trapped, stuck, hopeless into hopeful, moving, curious, exploratory. I think that's usually how I can tell when someone's worked through stuff because they're more curious about it less like I have to do this, I should do this, but more I want to do this. A quick example of that is

One of my clients, when I first, his abuser was his father. And when I first asked him that early on in our work, I asked like, so how do you feel about like forgiving your dad or the idea of forgiving your dad? And he immediately responded with this pressured sense of like, I guess like I should, I don't know. There's something wrong with me that I can't do that. Like it was just this very like, no, like kind of hyper response. And when I asked him that at the end of our work and I kind of knew where he was going to go with it. But I was like, so how do you feel again about like the idea of forgiving your dad?

And he hesitated for a second and then he was like, I don't know what I would get out of that. And I'm like, that is exactly the shift into a self advocating curiosity. He no longer feels like he has to do this or that. And he's able to kind of slow it down enough to like, fully respond, not just react. So that shift towards that type of play, I think is crucial. And I don't think I could do the work if it was all. Everything has to feel very heavy. That's that if a client comes in and they just lost their home or

someone just died, obviously I'm not gonna be cracking jokes and stuff, but there is a sense of when you're working with people longer term, like there should be enough room for some of that play. And I front load that too when I'm meeting people. I tell them I'm a very optimistic, playful therapist and if it's too much, they can fire me, like whatever. But it usually seems to work. People usually seem to gravitate towards that approach, especially in group as well.

Pat Tenneriello (1:08:06)
I often thought about therapists and the energy they absorb from those sessions, right? And the things that they are witnessed to or hear and how they process that, like this.

how do they work through all that stuff?

Mason Shell (1:08:20)
Well, I think that's part of being a good trauma therapist is understanding kind of how to navigate these things. Like when I'm doing workshops and stuff, I'll break that down between compassion fatigue, which is I just saw seven people and I'm just exhausted. And I'm like, and then you go home and your dog's looking at you and you're like, don't look at me right now. And it's like, it's not the dog's fault, like people usually think about it.

no, but I'm still there for my last client and stuff like that. But you'll usually notice that when you're at home, like your partner or whatever will be trying to talk to you you're just kind of emotionally burnt out. Then there's burnout, which obviously people are more familiar with. I won't dwell on that. But the big one with trauma work is vicarious trauma. The idea of you can inherit the sense of people's powerlessness. So if they're talking about a story and you're not kind of helping guide that and support them.

that story can feel so powerless and the person's looking for empathy. So you can get so invested in how powerless they feel that it can kind of haunt you. We have had people take some time off. They've had nightmares and stuff specifically to do with this one person's story and stuff like that. So there is a way that you can take too much of that on. And in one of our monthly consults, because we do a monthly kind of meeting with all of us, which again is part of how we process this stuff.

but we were talking about just what empathy is. And I think a lot of people think you have to walk a mile in their shoes. And I'm like, no, I don't want to walk a mile in this guy's shoes. He was tortured for 20 years. I'm like, I don't need to experience that to be able to empathize with the emotional outcome of it. I need to understand what happened. But if you're talking about a little kid being abused, you don't take the perspective of that kid. You kind of are a fly on the wall observing it and recognizing it so that there's still a safety and a grounding to it.

Pat Tenneriello (1:09:37)
.

Mason Shell (1:10:05)
and one of the things people screw up all the time is if someone's telling a story, like you, you're in my view, you shouldn't ask. So how did that feel? You should ask, how does it feel as you're talking about it? Cause it tethers them back into the present so that their nervous systems like, right, I'm answering this from the present tense. That's a big part of effective trauma work is making sure the client is in the room with you and not kind of in this, what I talk about is flip the lid state, which is your

Pat Tenneriello (1:10:16)
Hmm.

Mason Shell (1:10:31)
human part of the brain jumps out the window and they're just looping in this emotional part.

Pat Tenneriello (1:10:35)
it sounds like as a therapist, can add your personality, you can add your personal touch on the work that you do, but at the same time, you went through a training that is consistent across all therapists, I would assume. so if I go to one therapist and I go to another therapist, I'm going to see two different people with two different personalities, but the work.

How consistent or inconsistent will the work be across those two therapists?

Mason Shell (1:11:01)
Yeah, I think that's a big challenge because I do think a lot of like the way that I'm mapping out like again, the reason I use that town's trauma metaphor is because I'm surprised at how many people in my field kind of don't have a clear way of understanding that they end up.

just listening and just going week to week and just, are you feeling and stuff? And some people, that's what they need. The way I approach it, I'm like, look, you probably don't want to be talking with me. Like we enjoy it, but like, you're not going to want to be doing this forever. And I would be, I would feel that sense of shame if I'm like, I've been trying to help this person for three years straight and nothing's happening. I'm like, well, then I'm not being effective. So I do unfortunately think that there's trauma informed practice. There's a sense of how these things go, but I've seen some therapists.

that are incredibly didactic, incredibly focused on like what textbook they just read and they really want to use that stuff. But they don't have the kind of the charm or like presence to make the person actually want to talk with them. And I find when I'm interviewing students, because we take on a few students a year and we've got tons of applications and stuff. I'm like, look, if I need you to read a book or something at one point, like we'll get you to do that. But I have to know that you're like a chill, like enough, likeable enough.

person that I can handle you. Because our clients, if I can't stand talking with you, then our clients are going to constantly be returning their files and stuff. So I do think that's a big part of it. And I was actually kind of surprised the more I started doing the work. Because you can see patterns of client retention and stuff. And I see the same thing of like, if you don't have like a down to earth, again, silly a bit, like self-deprecating personality.

Clients are less likely to feel like an affinity with you, think, and they're more likely to be like, it's not a good fit. But yeah, that's not a, that's why I'm really encouraging people if you're gonna go seek out therapy, like try them out. Like put the shoes on, walk around the store, make sure it's a good fit and don't feel like you need to get blisters in order to tough it out. Cause there are gonna be people, like when I was looking for my own therapist, was like, one, I'm probably a.

Pat Tenneriello (1:12:51)
Yeah.

Mason Shell (1:13:02)
terrible client because I've thought about this stuff far too much. But I was just like, look, like, yeah, we're not a good fit. And the person was kind of caught off guard. I'm like, nothing against you. Like puzzle piece sometimes don't match. But once you find one that actually clicks, yeah, the training can be there, but the personality, I think is a huge part of what ends up kind of allowing people to be successful in this field.

Pat Tenneriello (1:13:27)
you have any guidance for when someone should seek therapy? Like, and I'll give you some examples where it's like, could be nuanced, right? Like if I'm overweight, I could go see a dietician or maybe there's some underlying issues where I've tried dieting and it never works. And maybe I need it. Maybe there's some underlying issues that require therapy or,

Maybe I got laid off from my last two jobs and thinking about what I want to do next and I can use a career coach. Or maybe there's some underlying issues and I should ask myself why this keeps happening. Those types of situations, any guidance on when you would push someone in one direction versus another?

Mason Shell (1:14:08)
Yeah, I mean, I would use people's expertise if it's dieting and stuff. I think a lot of these types of positions, one of the things they offer is an external sense of accountability. Like if I have to show up to the dietitian again and I've gained more weight, like they're gonna be like, what's going on here? And I'm gonna have to answer for that. but again, I think I don't, mean, unless you're working with someone who just...

does not do pacing or anything like that. And you, just go a hundred percent into like deep trauma and stuff, which I would doubt. But I think if there's a curiosity for it and a feeling like, Hey, that might be helpful for me. Then keeping that curiosity and that openness to it. And then seeing, I've worked with some clients that were referred from law firms and stuff and worked with one guy like three, four times. And I was like, so what is it you, why are you really here? He's like, I don't know. He's like, I'm fine. And I was like, all right, well.

I'll keep your file, but like, you don't have to feel like you have to be here. but I, if it's like a dietician or something like that, they're going to be more useful. But again, a lot of that stuff I find, especially with like AI and stuff like that, like you can, like I chat GPT myself.

dietary workout plan and stuff and it did what I needed it to do. So I think therapy does offer a different sense of an interpersonal thing that isn't really just Googleable because I think that that's something particularly guys, I think a lot of men want these quick answers, they want tools and I'm when I'm doing my work I'm like well you can Google that or we can we can look that up but there's a relational part to therapy that I think helps get the gears rolling and people actually being kind of self-aware and self-compassionate so

I would trust the instincts on it and then do a bit of research as to like, what do I actually need? Is this working? Can I look into something else or both? mean, a dietician and a person about why keep gaining weight and stuff. But again, then cost comes into it and it's all society still exists and capitalism still out there. So it bumps heads with a trauma work.

Pat Tenneriello (1:16:03)
Yeah, as we close here, what would be a first step someone could take to seek some help or get involved in a program like yours or just seek therapy?

Mason Shell (1:16:12)
if they're looking specifically for working with people who work with like male survivors, very few and far between, which is just tough. like at our agency, if you reach out, we know that the premise is that there's been abuse there just by nature of the agency. But if you don't have that type of resource and you're reaching out to like a private therapist, I would.

try to bring it up fairly early to gauge their comfort in whether they're comfortable working with them. I would also be focusing on people who indicate that they do trauma work. If it's just like a CBT skills group or something, it's likely not going to kind of scratch that itch that people are looking for. But yeah, I would familiarize yourself with just the resources in your area, depending on where listeners are and stuff, because sometimes there's kind of have to take what you can because there's almost nothing there.

Pat Tenneriello (1:17:05)
Yeah.

Mason Shell (1:17:06)
but I would, I would really, if there's an interest in it, I would dedicate enough time to sit down and be like, why do I feel like I need this right now? What are the current things that I'm struggling with and why am I connecting them to my past? How do I want this to look like I'll always ask my clients like, if at the end of 26 sessions, things are good, like what will that look like?

And people will say things like, I'll be in a relationship or I'll have job security and stuff. And I'm like, okay, well, how will you be feeling and what will be different? so having a thorough sense of that, the thing that drives me crazy is when a client comes in and I'm like, Hey, so like, what brings you in? And they're like, I don't know. And I'm like, okay, well, we could have done this work before, but we'll, we'll go back and kind of try to figure that out. and sometimes that's a defense thing, but that would be my thing. It's really advocating for yourself and therapy, calling a therapist out if they're not talking about what you want to.

and being again playful and comfortable with that. think it'll be informative if they get defensive about it or something.

Pat Tenneriello (1:18:02)
I like that.

Yeah. So, and so you encourage defining success in a way, like even like writing down like objectives, goals.

Mason Shell (1:18:13)
Yeah, I think at least having that, and again, it's gotta all be flexible. If you start working with someone and then something big comes up and it's overwhelming and you're gonna detour and focus on that, totally fair game. But I think that's one of the toughest parts for particularly men is feeling like, what is the direction here? Like sometimes I think it can feel like you're treading water in the dark and you have to have like a lantern at some shore so your body can feel like at least I know that I'm kind of aiming at that.

if you detour again it's flexible and at that point hopefully the rapport is there with the therapist. But I also talk about it like I use an example of I hiked Kilimanjaro years ago and I remember thinking like once I'm at the top that'll be the moment that's like satisfying and then when I got to the top the altitude sickness completely wrecked me my heart rate's like 160 and I'm like the least comfortable I've ever been and I was like damn I wish I had a different approach to this.

because I should have at every plateau and every break in the clouds been able to be like, it is kind of that old, like the journey is what's important. So I caution clients against that too of needing to get to that outcome exactly, but being okay with the incremental kind of journey of it, which a lot of clients don't want to hear, but that's just the way we're wired. We're never going to be fully satisfied or happy with ourselves. So how do you build that self-compassion and challenge that inner critic, I think.

Pat Tenneriello (1:19:31)
I ask this question to everyone that I have on the show. What does growing up mean to you, Mason?

Mason Shell (1:19:37)
I think growing up is... Like I am proud to be able to cringe at my former self. When I look back at being like a shithead teenager, young adult, like I'm proud that I can look back and be like, God. But it's not the type of thing where I'd be so ashamed if people heard some of these like silly stories, cause I can laugh at it now. But I think that's really the benchmark of maturity is when you're able to cringe at your former self. Cause indicative of that is...

you're in a different place and you can recognize like the growth like implicitly in that dynamic. And I also think like for me personally and a lot of people might not necessarily have this but having people that are tethered to my past like having people that knew me when I would be cringing at myself and they've loved me all throughout is also really important piece for me to be able to kind of benchmark where things are at. But I also like I'm a very like

I focus a lot on discipline, exercise, diet, keeping place clean, the way I do work and stuff. And being, holding myself accountable for that without hating myself if I fall short. I think the tone of our inner critic is also a really important piece. I do a lot of silly voices and accents and stuff. So if I'm mad at myself, it'll be in some other voice in my head and I'll be able to laugh at it rather than just be like, you're so stupid, that type of thing.

And yeah, I do think like doing this type of work has aged me quicker because there's a sense of what is the utility of feeling a certain way? Who's this actually helping? Who am I punishing by just like getting in my head and being able to catch that quicker and forgive ourselves for things and give ourselves grace the way we would the other guys in group or something like that is also really important piece of it. Yeah, I think mainly being able to.

continually to cringe at who I was like a week ago and not cringe in a bad way, but be like, okay, it's at least moving then because I'm happier with myself today than I would have been a month ago or so. But again, that's that journey thing. don't think you ever, I don't know if you ever fully grow up. Maybe that's counterintuitive to the title of the podcast and stuff, but I'm like, I yearn to continue to be playful and have that energy.

and people seem relaxed around it. And I always had this sense of like, maybe I'll be seen as immature, this is like silly. And I'm like, I don't get that feedback from people. They seem to respect it and kind of admire the sense of, can you be playful? Can you not take yourself too seriously?

Pat Tenneriello (1:22:06)
I like that it sort of embraces your uniqueness while also, you know, having elements of discipline and so on and, and, some flexibility in that. So I really appreciate that answer. I'm going to link down in the description of the episode to the resources of your organization, any resources you would like me to add, you can send me those and anything that I didn't ask you, anything you wanted to put out there that I

Mason Shell (1:22:17)
Yeah.

Pat Tenneriello (1:22:31)
Maybe you didn't get a chance to.

Mason Shell (1:22:32)
One thing I was gonna say, one way I look at kind of how we take care of ourselves and like when you can do your own check-ins and stuff. I just simplified into just what I call ABCs, which is awareness. So being aware of how we're feeling, holding ourselves accountable to actually check in and be like, how was my day? Why do I, why am I gritting my teeth right now?

Why am I laughing at nothing? Just that awareness piece, how does it feel somatically? How does it feel in your body? Is your heart rate up? Are you sweating at different times? I find a lot of guys, I'm quite surprised that that piece almost isn't there at the start of the work and they have to really build that awareness. So that would be the A. And then B would be balance. I think balance is crucial. Work-life balance, including a balance in downtime. I think a lot of people feel shame if they're not being productive all the time.

Like we're wired to be sitting around the fire. We're not always hunting. So be okay with sitting there watching TV, but also have your balance of downtime with things like I would call constructive downtime. So like I'll work out or I'll play piano or I'll write books and stuff. like different types of downtime, I think are important and having a balance of that. And then C would be connections. Cause a lot of this stuff can't be healed or worked through.

if there aren't connections. And for some of our clients, the therapeutic connection really is all they have, which is why it can be so powerful. But it's just a basic way that when you were asking about how would someone who might want therapy kind of analyze it, I would look over those things. I'd be like, how aware am I? What is my balance? What are my connections? And if those are lacking or they cause distress to think about, then it might be good to try to kind of build up and explore those with someone. yeah, no, there was those.

Great conversation, think, is that, so again, rich terrain and there's a lot there.

Pat Tenneriello (1:24:13)
it was as light as it could be for such a difficult conversation or difficult topic, I should say. So I really appreciate you and appreciate the conversation, Mason. Thank you so much for your time and for joining the show.

Mason Shell (1:24:26)
No,

it's good to me. It's got to be getting late there.

Pat Tenneriello (1:24:29)
you for tuning into the episode. I hope we raised awareness for an important topic. If you or someone you know is affected by childhood trauma or sexual abuse, I encourage you to check out the resources in the episode description. I also encourage you to hit the subscribe or like button. That way we get in front of a wider audience to raise awareness for this important issue. See you on the next episode.