This is 1 of the most touching conversations I have ever had. It really showcases the profound impact a process can have. After taking the process, my guest, Bernard Franklin, transformed what once felt like pain and agony into a gift. Not only was he able to love himself and that little boy that he once was, he was also able to find deep compassion for his parents. And when he went back out into the world after the process. He became an embodiment of authentic balanced masculinity.
And with that embodiment, he actively gives hope to what he calls our world's toughest men. This is a beautiful interview with a beautiful man prepare to be deeply moved. Also please be aware this conversation does make reference to abuse and therefore may not be suitable for all audiences. And Welcome to Lu everyday radius. A podcast brought to you by the Hoffman Institute. My name is Sharon Moore, and I'm 1
of your hosts. And on this podcast, we talked to Hoffman graduates about how their courageous journey inward impacted their personal lives, but also how it impacted their community and the world at large. So tune in and listen in and hear how our graduates authentic selves, how their love, how their spirits are making a positive impact on our world today. In other words, get to know their loves everyday radius Alright Bernard. Welcome to the show. Thank you.
It's great to be with you. Well, let's start with the Hoffman process. When did you take the process? And what was it that led you there? I took the process in June of last year in Connecticut. I remember pretty vividly going to the website the first time. And seeing the words when you're serious about change, I was a man who had blocked lots of emotions, lots of feelings, lots of energy and all of those channels were ready to explode. To come on blue.
I was ready. I had no idea. Honestly, I had no idea what I was getting into those words just penetrated me. When you're ready for sirius james. It's like okay. I'm ready, but I don't know what I'm getting into. So I went to Connecticut talk about surrender. And when you went there, were you aware that these channels were ready to explode or you just knew something needed to shift. I was really unsettled. I don't know what a nervous breakdown feels like, but I was I was shaky. I was,
I was not myself. I wasn't feeling comfortable in my skin any longer. I couldn't pretend to be good and fine. And well, I had arrived at the world's best educational institution, and at the height of my life at the height of my career, here I was a month after arriving feeling that I I needed something, but I didn't know exactly what I needed. But I knew that all of my cylinders were were off. And what was the process like for you? It was excruciating to begin with. I say that
and I have to interject. I have to bring in not just my mail in this, but my being African American male, I was conscious, probably hyper vigilant of where I was going and what I was doing. I had an idea that going to rural Connecticut would be all white. So I was immediately feeling bad anxiety. And as we drove from the train riding in an Uber deeper into rural Connecticut the fear and the anxiety continued to rise.
So we arrive, and I get out and met by the staff and so forth it make my way to my room and it's What can I say? It's it's a lonely space because you don't know you're in a strange place. You don't know anyone. And so you settle in and trust that the universe has a plan and a purpose for you, but you don't know. So you surrender to where you're at and surrender to those moments. And I was red I mean, I what more can I say? I I was ready, though it was painfully awkward.
And so you said excruciating to begin with, and then did that evolve into something else? Well, yes. So we get to the first event. And how how do I say I arrive in the room, and the room is set up with chairs and with our name tag or name plate on the chair and my chair is at the end of the first row in the back.
I had an immediate visceral reaction of being back in middle school whereas an advanced African American in this a middle school, all of my class rooms had franklin at the end of the first row in the back. The only black hit, and you look at it back and you think no, why did my teachers say to themselves? How do we integrate this boy? How do we bring this boy into the culture and the community?
It wasn't so thin, but to get to it years later and the still the same positioned the same culture happens again, I remember saying to myself kind of processing that sitting there you were a boy once, and you didn't say anything. You're a man now, and it's time for you to speak up. And so I went to my teacher, and I I can't stay here. I this is this is... This is... I can't do this. III need to go, and
my teacher was just calm. Just just a sweet man just recognize recognized that I was in pain, and I was frustrated and said, well, maybe there's something more here. Maybe there's something more to the story. Maybe maybe there's a there's something to unfold here. Would you trust the process? And everything in me said wanted to say, hell, no. I'm not trusting in this process.
So I'm gonna... I'm gonna leave I'm gonna get out of here, but I think it was the manner and the way that my teacher engaged me. That touched my humanity touched my heart and touched that spot that said, wait. Wait. Wait. There might be something more here that you need to process. And so I went back to my room and I stayed stayed overnight. And you mentioned that 1 of the inner conversations you had with yourself was, you know, you were once a boy and you didn't speak up You're now a man.
It's time to speak up. Would you say that was 1 of the first times you spoke up in that way? And that way, yes. And to be honest with you, I I'm not quite sure why I did other than maybe being hyper vigilant being so aware, it brought me to that place. But, yes, there just times when I've been more compliant, kinda role with the culture role with where I've been, having grown up with a very demanding father who did not provide me opportunities to express myself.
Very cold, very calculating, very dismissive, didn't receive love from his father, and was incapable of showing me love. I didn't have that so. I lived under a tight rule went through school pretty much that same way. So, yes, I'd lived a pretty compliant life fall in line, do what's required do what's necessary to get ahead, but I don't know if this was a moment where I just couldn't do that to and I spoke out of my belly.
I spoke out of my stomach. I spoke out of that inner part of me that said, This is time for you to speak up. This is time for you to express how you feel. It's interesting because you say, I don't know. You know, why I did it, but I did. And what I heard you say earlier was when you felt like you were ready, you had a surrender. You you you said I'm going to surrender when a surrender to the moments I'm gonna a surrender to this. And maybe in that surrender was what guided you to
to speak up in this way? That's a good point. It is j the position. If you look at it, if you're ready to change why not just sit through it? Why not just say, well, these are circumstances, but I'm... I won't change so bad. I'll do whatever it takes to to get there.
My position was, what if this is what I have to go through to get to change, I'm not saying it, which was this this strange push and pull just the position of of saying, I want change, but this is uncomfortable to be the only black in this room and at the back of the room, and I'm leaving. But to have someone who was skilled enough to say, But, yeah, there could be something more here. You had that experience. You spoke up, you were held and seen by your teacher you stayed.
And then what what happened in the process for you? Well, then we talked about... We introduced ourselves and I made the introduction that how uncomfortable it was for me to be in this... Base and in present and to be the only 1. And again, I'm saying this in ways that I... That's not typically how I handle race and culture. I've been 1 to ride with it and just smooth it over.
But for whatever reason, I couldn't and I have to interject because I want our listeners to understand this is being said, I love and out of where I am out of my position and out of my place. I think there were some in my group who heard other words or other things and perhaps took offense or were wounded by those words, but that was not my intent.
My intent was coming out of my own story coming out of my own experience of being the only kid, the left out kid, the kid that no 1 talks to the kid that no 1 interacts with or the kid that's working really hard to get good grades and to be you know, this the smart kid, but still always on the outside. And so that's that's what I was attempting to say is I think I wanna grow up. I want a tutor, I wanna be... I wanna say how I feel and own that feeling.
And has that stayed with you this this ability to not just feel the feelings, but also express what you're feeling in your life post process? Yes. Yes, it has. It has stayed. There was a little boy before who was so submissive, so broken, not given compassion. Not told he was enough. He was good enough. He was present. I wasn't seen by my dad. I wasn't loved by my dad. I wasn't encouraged by my dad. My dad said I would never amount to anything. I wasn't worth a nickel.
So through my process, of course, you know, we spent time with my mom, spent time with my dad. And I had done some of that work before, but I think I came into a deeper place of recognizing my dad gave me all he had my parents were share. They picked cotton. And at that time, their lives weren't about family systems or healthy families. They about survival. They did enough to keep us alive and to keep the family moving forward but it wasn't about learning how to be a good loving father.
My mother learning how to be a good loving mother. I mean, it was it was about survival. So looking back on it. I could look back and and say, they gave me what they had. And so my process at Hoffman was really around accepting that and really embracing that really, really deeply and saying, that black family did what they could with what they had. Yeah. So almost going through that, you landed in a deeper place compassion like you say, you accepted it, but
really, really embrace it deeply. It's a different level of acceptance than you may have had before. Yes. Yes much deeper. And coming to the place, I think, in a realistic way where I could love my dad and love my mom. You know, even parts of this, even now is hard to express, but my dad came back from the Korean war, heroin addicted and they married. And I think what really happened was it trapped my dad.
And my dad didn't wanna be married. But now all of a sudden he's married, having come back from the war, your hair addicted, you had If you could say a great time a wartime, he described how the Korean women really loved African American men. And so he had... I think this kind of fascination of maybe, and probably some Suave, he would be this single guy that would have fun, and it didn't quite work out that way. And then here I come and
that's not what he wanted. So My childhood was really a lot of that resentment and a lot of his anger toward me. Lot of abuse, lots of lots of abuse, I I'll I'll say it that way. So Hoffman was a way to really go deep into that space and really own a lot of that pain that I hadn't expressed and really clean it out and begin to let the little boy who wasn't seen wasn't heard. Now finally have an opportunity. To be heard to be seen. How was all of this unfolded in your life, you went back to this?
You mentioned you were at, you know, the height of this career and 1 of the best universities and suddenly hitting this cross of. I can't go on something needs to change. You have this powerful experience at the process what's it like when you go back home to your life? It continues.
The unfolding continues Because now it's not about trying to look good or if we were to describe it in terms of places and positions just extraordinary the things that I've done, and it's amazing that looking back even now, but especially at my my site, how in the world I survived worked really hard ballot torn of my high school, first African American student body president, all this enormous stuff therapists for an Nfl football team just enormous, but it wasn't who I really am
And so after Hoffman, I went to visit friends to really begin to integrate the process. And in integrating, I realized that there was work for me to do to take my authentic self. To broken men in the streets who haven't had a role model, who haven't had a father, who haven't had a man. So I wrestled with do I remain with my mask on a man who appears to be successful but doesn't show his scars or doesn't show his wounds, and I couldn't do that anymore. It felt like it was time for me to
not hide anymore. How I grew up my pain, my difficulties. It was time for me to own this journey. And so I did, literally, I went and cried the whole week because this integration was, you need to set aside this false pretense tenths of a man and take on this broken man who is now being integrated into wholeness. And let that be the man you are and the man you show the world. And are you able to touch into or share with us
what has that been like? So you set aside the false pretense tense, you put away the mask, You show your real self What's happened as a result? It's not all easy. I think I have looked for an army of other men to come alongside and affirming me. But I've had to learn how to stand in my own shoes and stand in my own masculinity and allow that new man to work and breathe without approval
I needed my father's approval. I needed other men's approval, but where I'm at now and where I am as, I've integrated Hoffman is it's okay for me to feel feelings and how feelings and have emotions, but I don't need be affirmed I can be this man who shows up in his broken ness. I can be this man who shows up in his pain. And I can be a role model for other men about how to work through their own grief and their own trauma, And what it means to be authentic in that space.
You mentioned show up as this role model in my pain and allow other men to work through their grief and their trauma have you noticed how do they respond to seeing this version of you, this real version of you, how what's the impact on them? They are moved because many of them have not had an opportunity to engage male authenticity. Our culture has so brutal masculinity. And has so depicted masculinity as being tough and emotion And so for me to walk into a room and for me to share my story.
In it's full authentic, masculine humanity is for some men, the first time they've heard it. And the first time they've seen it. So it is very enriching and well received well received. With men that I never thought. I would have favor with or interaction with you're talking about some of America's toughest men who have shot and killed and named people. Who suddenly said in a room and listen to my story and find hope in that. There have been extraordinary moments. Let's just say.
I mean, what I hear is our world needs this. Our feminine and masculine need this. We need to see this version of masculinity It's your personal story, but wow. What a collective impact is having. Yeah. It is. I would have never thought. That would come out of my hoffman experience. I... There's parts of me that thought I would, join an equity firm.
Or I would lead some extraordinary university or college that I never thought my hoffman experience I I just never thought my my experience would take me in in an authentic way to men who most needed it. And so I'm thankful these tears now are not that I'm not thankful. I'm so thankful. I heard at some point because I think Why wasn't I able to be authentic years before? Why couldn't not have it embraced this
year's before? But I can't go back and look at that all I can do now is learn to live in the present and respond to situations in the present. And learn how to speak with authenticity integrate it with masculinity? I can't think of a better way of describing it right now, but how do we bring that authentic mountains that authentic masculinity yet integrated and balanced with femininity to some of the toughest places in America.
So that's my challenge, and I owe it to my Hoffman experience, allowing the true man to come forward and to be be in this space, be with you now and be in this space. I have a belief that when we do this kind of work on ourselves, find ourselves back in the world members of our community, members of the collective, more communal focused and your story is another expression of that.
If I'm hearing it correctly, it was this thing that you couldn't touch all your life and maybe you even kept it secret like you said a mask, and you kept moving forward and moving forward and becoming extraordinary in your career and your profession. And here's this thing, the source of shame broke open in the process. And now it is continuing to break open, like you said, here I am still, it is still unfolding. The work is still taking place.
But you are touching into 1 of the hardest parts of our societies and inspiring them and giving them hope. With that story that you were maybe once hiding Most of your life. E. Yeah. Even to me, pretty extraordinary, I would have never expected it. Would have never even anticipated it, but it also says just how broken a part of our culture is, and how we have marginalized a group of people that we've labeled super predators and they are no different than me who are looking for some
affirmation. Someone to say they're good enough. And when they don't hear that, did they create their own community, they create their own family, and that family is so broken, so desperate partly broken, but they don't know any other way. And so I can come in and I can say yes, but there is another way partly so much of neuroscience today says that broken traumatic brains can heal and broken traumatic people can change their mindset.
So I can bring Hoffman, though, I don't specifically say hoffman. I do talk about how significant broken traumatic experiences, don't have to continue to define us, that we can change. We can turn. We can find a whole other direction. And walked therein in. I'm moved by you, bringing this to this population. And like you said, I was thinking an equity firm or a professor in a college or all these other options, and something... Was this was this also a surrender
what? What steer you in this direction of this is how I'm gonna show up in my authentic mail? When I went away to some friends in Oregon and literally in my integration I sensed that this was my purpose, and this was my opportunity. I had come in contact with an organization in Boston, that worked with this population. And as wendell ser d moment, when the universe
brings us together for lunch. And as they were talking, I felt my inside, say, your authentic self will show up here, and your authentic self will be welcomed here. You will feel purpose here. But I have to admit even in that integration period I fought it because this is not who I thought I was supposed to grow up to be. I thought I was gonna put on this successful mask. And so I had to turn around what a success success is living out of our true identity, success is living out of our purpose.
Success is living with purpose and with passion, And so these guys give me purpose and passion. They give me the sense that all have I've been through all of that hell all of that stuff was for purpose that I can use this truth of my experience to say I've been there. I have felt that. I know what it feels like to have a father who doesn't speak to you out of love and care. I know what that feels like. But at the same time, I can tell them there is transformation.
There is hope we can change we can find another direction to live. Amazing bernard. So, yeah. So that's what Hoffman was for me was to allow me to dig deep to find that little boy mature that boy into masculinity and manhood and to say all of that past is a gift. That I can give away to other men. And so I completely turned it around. What what I once thought was a hell up upbringing a hell ish life, pain, suffering. I say now those are my gifts. Those are what I give away.
It it was my training and Hoffman brought it all together. I I can't say enough of my experience, even the parts of playing was allowing that little boy who didn't have fun to all of a sudden now have fun. So it's this week of full integration of emotion. And feelings and grabbing a whole of stuff that you didn't have an opportunity you or life wouldn't give you perspective about how to bring it all together. Suddenly, you have this week and it comes together.
And we're talking you did this you know, a little over a year ago. Nope. Not even almost a year ago. Almost a year. So within a year, you experienced this incredible cracking open and then transformation and then a continuous unfolding, and then having this incredible impact on this group of people all within a year. I was ready. Less than a year. I was ready. Yeah. You ready. And I also think there's...
You know, you mentioned a couple things that I that I have this visual of little crossroads along the way where you had to make the choice conscious or unconscious to stay the course. You know, you said I was looking for an army of men. That didn't happen. You still stayed the course. I thought I was gonna do the success thing. That didn't happen.
You still stayed the course. And that's probably 2 of a hundred examples of the little crossroads along the way that Again, I get this hit of surrender that that your spirit or you're something kept telling you move forward, keep going this direction. Yeah. I do A check every day so that I can have balance with my intellect, my body my emotions and to get a good solid word for my spirit. I need that. That is what has kept me focus and moving forward.
And I look back in even as you say, I look back and say, amazing, how much has happened in less than a year. But I was ready, and I've gotten in touch with a process that helps me understand when I'm entering a pattern how I release that pattern? How I that goal of and surrender and then begin to embrace my adult masculinity and say, okay, this is the proper thinking or this is the proper feeling or are emotion let's move in that.
Let's settle it that. And so for me, doing a daily car is almost my daily essential element. I need to check With Bernard. And make sure all of Bernard is ready to take on the day. Yeah. Exactly. My, Bernard what a courageous and beautiful story that you live. That is your life and what a beautiful expression of what happens when when you go into the work ready and willing. Agree. I think none of us can say we've had too much of a painful past or too much abuse or too much trauma.
I hope I can say. I hope I can speak to even those who feel they had no love or no focus certain no family that there's life on the other side that when you're ready to change, there is a process. And when you wanna find your true self, there is a way, and you can connect with that part of you that the universe wants you to connect with. I hope I can say that to people. But all you you just did and you do in your life. It's beautiful. Thank you.
Bernard, thank you so much for being here and for opening up and for inspiring all the ears that this lands on and I hope it lands on so many years because this is really powerful. And if you ask me what our world needs So thank you so much for being here and for letting us in and for opening up. I appreciate it. I I would say as as we close for all of those who would like to find a way to support this work that they would set aside whatever funds or efforts that they can.
Our world needs a process like this. And I hope we can generate more ways. And I'm I'm being specific, but I know all of us needed, but my community, my desperate community of African American men, who are so broken. My heart, my goal, my passion is to figure out how I take off and deeper into broken urban communities. So thank you for this time. I appreciate it. How lucky our world is to have you caring and doing what you're doing. I'm grateful.
Well, thank you. You filled my heart and filled many and inspired us all, so thank you again for bernard my pleasure. Thank you for listening to our podcast. My name is Liza and Rossi. I'm the Ceo and President of Hoffman Institute Foundation. And I'm Asking Rossi, Often teacher and founder of the Hop Institute Foundation. Our mission is to provide people greater access to the wisdom and power of love. In themselves in each other and in the world. To find out more, please go to Hop
institute. Dot org.