Rachel

Hi Chris! Tell us, what kind of people do you work with?

Chris

Sure. That's a great question. I have my head in multiple different jobs. I am a licensed emergency family therapist. I am currently a clinical director at a mental health agency in the Bay Area. I oversee about 50 clinicians working in the community, both the community mental health school based services. I also have a private practice for myself where I work mainly with men and issues of masculinity and depression, anxiety, things of that nature. And I do have some female presenting or female clients, but my kind of thrust or, what I really enjoy doing, is working with men and around issues of what it needs to be a man and emotional expression. And then I run a weekly weightlifting slash mental health group in the area. I’m also a father and married and all the other things that come along with being a grown adult, I guess. 

Rachel

I definitely want to touch on masculinity. I have a couple really big thoughts on that at the moment. 

But had you had the weightlifting group before you did TIWL? Or was that born from it? 

Chris

That was born from TWIL, yeah. I had a friend who's an Olympic weightlifting coach and also a therapist who told me about the program, we had been in talks around the benefits that physical movement, particularly weightlifting, has on mental health.  And so she was like, we should take this class. I'm like, yes, we should. And in that process, it was, you know, I think my final project was actually developing this group. It was something I had had on my mind before. But it was really kind of the group that helped me solidify what that might actually look like. 

Rachel

Yeah, that's so neat. Were you yourself into weightlifting or anything before TIWL? 

Chris

I was, yeah. I was into mostly powerlifting type stuff. And then my friend, the therapist, also got me into the Olympic weightlifting side of it. So it was something I had been dabbling in, something I had been using for my own mental health treatment, it helped with my depression and anxiety. So, you know, it was, it was new to me, but I was on the path.  

Rachel

Well, so masculinity is really interesting, specifically when it comes to weightlifting, weightlifting gyms, and how I think of how that might impact others in the area. We have a lot of folks coming through our programs who are potentially intimidated by the gym, they may have had a couple negative experiences. So I wonder, have you encountered people that maybe have a little bit too much of that side of things going into weightlifting and whatnot, and you work to calm it down? Or are you usually working on building it up?  

Chris

For the most part, the folks that I've been dealing with are folks dealing with pretty good anxiety and depression. And so there's not a lot of kind of chest beating masculinity present with the folks that I've been working with. There are with folks in the gym that they come and interact with. And so it has been part of the practice of, you know, refocusing, helping them feel safe in the space that we've created and being okay with, you know, someone else being kind of maybe their full-on self and not allowing that to necessarily stop them from achieving what they want or being in the spaces that they want to be in. 

Rachel

That's a really interesting angle.So when it comes to somebody that's going through a program like yours or, I guess, a service like yours, a treatment like yours, when they are working on building up that healthy masculinity that works for them and then they get into that gym situation, what kind of advice would you have for them about maybe avoiding the kind of chest beating thing, or, what kind of advice would you give them about encountering that? 

Christopher:

That's a good question. I think it speaks into why I think weightlifting in general is really positive in terms of mental health benefits. It's a return to yourself and a return to your body and a return to what's true to you and what's going on for you. I think a large kind of thrust of my work with folks is, can we be aware of what's happening on the outside, understand it and kind of gauge whether or not we're safe and what does it mean to be safe, but then also return to our bodies and find, you know, it's a friend. My friend called it meditation or mindfulness for meatheads. 

Actually, it's finding sanctuary back in your body through weightlifting, right? So it almost is a meditation practice, but you're kind of returning to yourself to find strength within yourself and focusing on what you can do rather than what the other people are doing, right? So what you can't control, you know, someone in the gym throwing down weights or screaming or yelling, but you can control how you react to that and what you focus on for yourself.  

Rachel

Yeah, I love that. That's a great answer. 

So you did TIWL’s Certificate Program, correct? 

Chris

Yes. 

Rachel

Yes. Okay, cool. In that experience of taking the certificate program, being through it, meeting all the other people from different disciplines, was there anything that shifted your perspective on what you already thought you knew, or maybe something about the relationship between physical movement and mental health? Was there any kind of moment that shifted a perspective, kind of an aha, or maybe just furthered your understanding?  

Chris

Well, I mean, I think the first thing that jumps to mind is just being within a community, whether it was mental health professionals or fitness professionals, of thinking about these issues in a deeper way, which I really, really appreciated. I really enjoyed that community. I think it was when I was taking those lessons into whether it's, you know, and most of it was taking that work into weightlifting groups that I was trying, at the time, trying to create and test out and seeing the impact that working with someone's body in a physical way has in a way that doesn't happen when you're in a room doing therapy, right? 

So when we're doing the somatic work, when we're focusing on the body, when we're focusing on movement, when we can get someone moving in a different way than they've done for the last 20, 30 years, the change was pretty profound. That's, you know, like I, for example, I've been working with a client in therapy for the last 10 years. He joined the group and in about six months of just teaching him like, a squat, you know, like with better form. Just seeing that impact that that had on his sense of self and his confidence was, you know, hadn't really, we hadn't really gotten there in 10 years of kind of talk therapy and all of a sudden we had, I had seen a physical shift at him within just like three to six months of work in that way. So that was an aha moment for me of just like, wow, we're missing a large piece of this, this somatic work when we're just focused on talk. 

Rachel

Well, I was going to ask for storytelling at the end, but that's already incredible and really cool. 

What we've encountered a lot through TIWL is a misunderstanding of the importance of incorporating an embodied practice, somatic practice, anything like that into a more traditional talk therapy, CBT, anything like that. So I wonder, in your own words, what does embodiment mean to you? Is it important to bring that into your practice with patients who have experienced trauma? 

Christopher

A hundred percent. I think as trauma informed work dictates, you know, being embodied and coming back into our bodies when we have trauma can be really, really scary and has to be done really, really carefully.  So I think anybody who's wanting to do embodied work or do somatic work with folks needs to be, you know, intimately aware that doing a meditation or asking someone to return back into their body can actually be retriggering and can be really harmful to begin with. So I mean, that's obviously one of the things I really appreciated about this program and the certificate was that focus on not just mental health, but fitness professionals on everybody, like just, hey, this isn't necessarily a safe place for many people and how can we make it safer? But I think it is really important, right? We are our bodies, right? Our bodies are not separate from us. So to find safety, to find sanctuary within ourselves, I think is crucial because at the end of the day, that's what we have. That's what we have control over. And I think finding a pathway there into safety is the best that we can do, or at least the best work we can begin to focus on.  

Rachel

Yeah, that kind of leads me into another question. I wonder if you would expand on what you just said as advice to other mental health professionals who are considering incorporating some kind of embodied or somatic practice into what they do. It sounds like you would recommend it, but . . .

Christopher

Absolutely, I would absolutely recommend it. I would recommend that they find an embodied practice that works for them. Right? I mean, I wouldn't ask somebody who's not interested in weightlifting to try an embodied practice of weightlifting, you know, because it's probably just not going to fit them. But, you know, yoga might, or, any other kind of somatic or physical movement might be a really good fit for them. But absolutely, I mean, my advice is always, don't forget about the body, it's part of you, you know, and I think that is where I come into working with masculinity as well. So much of masculinity, particularly early masculinity, is around disconnecting ourselves, not only from our emotional experience, but from our bodies, because we're just supposed to take pain and suffering and all of that and just absorb it and just keep moving. I think men in particular are taught to not focus on their bodies, or focus on their bodies in a very objectified or simplified or toxic way, so that they can do the things that are expected of men.

I think it is really important to reconnect and define in a different way, not just for men, but for everybody.

Rachel

Absolutely. Absolutely. You touched on something interesting a moment ago, where you mentioned that coming back into the body, working in body practice can be maybe retriggering or bring up that trauma in kind of like a maybe negative or dangerous way for some folks.  

We've heard from the personal trainers, the strength professionals, that side of the TIWL participants, is they're a little bit scared of that interaction when they're working with a client on weight training, they're noticing something, and they're nervous about when their job ends and a therapist's job begins. Would you speak for a minute on that fear?

Christopher

Yeah, in the TIWL program, I'm pretty sure this came from one of the early classes, was setting up a safety plan with folks early on. I think in my intakes I do with folks, and I would recommend anybody who's doing body work with folks, is an intake that includes a safety plan. If you get triggered, what do you need from me? Do you need space? Do you need me to listen? Do you need me to refer out? Have that conversation early on so that when you do get there, which you will, you have a plan to follow and a plan that's been helped along by the client of what they need and what they want. 

Rachel

I love the preemptive approach.

Christopher

I would just add, at the end of the day,  as long as you're listening, you can't go wrong. Right? Just listen, hold space, reassure. If it gets to a crisis moment, know your crisis plan. Know if you need to call 911 or 5150 or something. But at the end of the day, people just want to be heard. 

Rachel

I appreciate that. That's a great add on. 

So you already mentioned the story of your client of 10 years, yet seeing as storytelling is one of the main ways that people relate to our content and then maybe participate or recommend, do any more stories come up?

Christopher

There's one individual who's been to the group multiple times, older individual through multiple, multiple traumas in their life, sexual abuse, drug use and their connection. I remember asking them like, early on in the group, why do you do this? What is the point of this group for you? And their response was, “To feel strong, because I don't feel strong in so many ways. I feel like I've been hurt by so many others. I do this to feel confident and strong that I can protect myself. This is the embodiment practice that really helps me.” 

Just watching them and their level of confidence, their level of safety within themselves that happens before and after the workout is really striking. Just those small shifts and reminders for folks brings them back. 

Oh yeah, that's right. I can take a deep breath. I can be myself. I can take up space in this gym. I am strong. You didn't know that, but I knew that, I saw that in you. Let's keep that going. Let's keep surprising yourself with what you think you can do versus what you actually, you know, can show up for. 

I had another guy, and we were doing pushups. I think we had like 10 pushups in the program and he really struggled. He had to go on his knees after like three or four. I checked in with him and he admitted having a lot of shame about being a man and not being able to do 10 pushups.  

So we processed that a little bit and I encouraged him to try pushups on his knees as they are still pushups. Like, who's to tell you they're not. And just the way he kind of glowed afterwards and reached out to me following that was really grateful, because no one had ever really validated that it's okay to learn to do pushups. It's a process. I mean, there's lots of these little stories of people being accepted for who they are and validated and acknowledged that, yeah, we're not all these fitness stars on Instagram. We're real people who are learning to do something hard. Reach. 

Rachel

I love that pushup story.

So here we are, finally, my favorite question to ask folks, what is the hill you’d die on?

Christopher

I mean, I think the first thing that pops out to me, is that body shape does not dictate health - either emotional or physical or spiritual. That's why I love, love, love the Olympic weightlifting community so much and some of the other communities as well, like powerlifting. I've seen so many different body types lift a lot more weight than I have, and it's really exciting. I think it really challenges what we think health looks like. I will routinely talk to individuals, whether it's mental health professionals or fitness professionals, about not judging people based on their size or what they look like or how tall or how small or, even just how they're showing up because they will surprise you. 

Rachel

That is so important. I love that.

Chris

Our systems and society teaches us, this is what health looks like. This is what strength looks like. So we're really unlearning so much of this and our personal experiences.