From Navy SEAL to Social Work: Tom LeGrave on Resilience, Growth, and Personal Transformation

What does it take for a Navy SEAL to transform into a licensed clinical social worker? Join us as we uncover the extraordinary life of Tom LeGrave, who shares his compelling journey from military service to helping others navigate the complexities of young adulthood.

 At the heart of our conversation, we focus on the age group of 18 to 24, a time when self-regulation and resilience are crucial. Tom’s personal struggles provide a powerful backdrop as we discuss the profound impact of chronic stress and the difference a resilient role model can make during these pivotal years.

Rites of passage—what role do they play in defining our journey from dependence to independence? We explore this intriguing topic with Tom, delving into the cultural perceptions of these transitions and their psychological impact. Often misunderstood, the stigma surrounding science and therapy is another key discussion point. We also highlight those life-changing “aha” moments when individuals realize their own capacities and potential, emphasizing the importance of personal discovery and the art of letting go for growth and self-discovery.

Have you ever considered the power of personal reflection in seeking growth? With Tom LeGrave, we discuss how being just one step ahead can make a significant difference in helping others. Through Tom’s candid recounting of a personal relapse after decades of sobriety, we explore the importance of authenticity, vulnerability, and understanding our implicit memories. As we wrap up, we find a beacon of hope even in the darkest times, encouraging listeners to pursue sources of inspiration and motivation, nurturing a sense of optimism every day.

Chapters

• 0:14 Youth Resiliency and Personal Growth
• 11:27 Transition to Independence and Self-Discovery
• 23:04 Seeking Growth Through Personal Reflection
• 32:30 Finding Hope Amidst Darkness

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:14

Thank you, hey everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Speak Plainly podcast, where we speak plainly about things that matter. On today's episode, I have a special guest here for you. I have Tom LeGrave. He is a ex-Navy SEAL and a combat veteran of his own, but the only step up from where we were in the Air Force we're like, the only people who are better medics than we are, hands down, are the Navy Corpsmen. I'm really excited to introduce you to this man. He has dedicated decades of his life to helping youth and helping people who are struggling for one reason or another, and he is the author of Special Welfare, social Warfare and the Bell Tolls for Thee. Thank you for joining me. Welcome, tom.

Speaker 2: 1:30

And thank you very much for the opportunity you're presenting, so I appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 1:34

So tell me about your work, what it is that you do.

Speaker 2: 1:41

At this stage right now I have a private practice, I'm a licensed clinical social worker and I'm working with mostly the adult population right now. But for the last couple decades my primary focus was adolescents to adulthood, folks that are 18 to 22, 3, 4, somewhere in there. And as it stands, I still address that. But I'm finding in today's environment the adult population is not exactly balanced.

Speaker 1: 2:10

So agreed, yeah, and it's basically impossible for unbalanced people to raise balanced children. So you were kind of in a cycle of that. Why that age group? Why that 18 to 24?

Speaker 2: 2:26

You know what it came? Down to 17 year old, I'm still having to deal with parents, and respectfully so they're your kids. So at 18, that changes. And then at 21, you've pretty much got your direction. For better or worse, you're on your way. It's that transition that I can be most effective with. Regardless of what you got in the first 18 years, I can do in a one-year program altering the large amount of dysfunction into a honorable, internally driven individual.

Speaker 1: 3:06

Wow, an honorable, internally driven individual. Yeah, that kind of covers it. Yeah, that really does cover a lot. So it sounds to me that you're pretty used to working with people with troubled pasts.

Speaker 2: 3:24

Sounds to me that you're pretty used to working with people with troubled pasts. Actually, who isn't a person with a difficult, if not troubled, past?

Speaker 1: 3:38

Exactly no. The opening line of my book is we all got demons. Each and every person who's ever walked this earth has at least one true story that will break your heart.

Speaker 2: 3:42

Absolutely. You got it and I completely agree.

Speaker 1: 3:47

It's a wild ride out there for all of us and I'm happy to be able to give you a space to share what it is that you do. So it sounds like people are coming from in today's day and age. My whole philosophy, my book Rethinking, is based on chronic stress adaptation, and that being essentially, no matter what your diagnoses and problems, and whether they be relational or personal or whatever. A lot of it comes from chronic stress in childhood, whether that's from an abusive parent or whether it's from neglect or whether it's just from living in the 21st century and everybody. You've got to have two parents that are working, two full-time jobs and, no matter what, we're raised with this crazy amount of stress, and you're so right.

Speaker 1: 4:34

What I find really interesting about that 18 to 21 and 24 mark is that's the development of the prefrontal cortex, which is all about our ability to say no and self-regulate and as we adapt to chronic stress when we're young, this little triangle of things that get weighed in our actions, our behaviors, our, our, our, our emotional, our emotional mind, our dopaminergic mind and and our logical mind. It's this, it's that prefrontal cortex, logical stuff that takes a hit because it doesn't get a chance to build because we're constantly under stress, we're constantly having to respond to the crazy crap that's happening around us, and when somebody enters the chat at 18, 20 something years old, you get a chance to be what I consider that one person. That is your resiliency. I talk about adverse childhood experiences you're clearly very familiar with. But the other side of those ACEs is resiliency, and the thing that determines whether a person becomes resilient or not, like why does one 10 out of 10 ace become a heroin addict and another become a social worker?

Speaker 1: 5:50

The answer is resiliency. Was there one person? Because every question on that resiliency questionnaire is about did a person a neighbor, a teacher, a preacher, a counselor make you feel like you mattered? A preacher, like a counselor, make you feel like you mattered. And when somebody gets to come in at like right at that age, like you do with these people's like in these people's lives, that is a truly pivotal time. So when you enter these young adults lives, what is your goal? What's in your mind? How do you move through your process of? How do I get this person to see themselves as honorable and move through the world according to their own value system?

Speaker 2: 6:37

So let's start and put the foundation underneath us. My first job after I left the military, which was I was given a general under honorable for drug use. I was discharged and at a loss. So as I put my life back together again, I saw that I didn't. I couldn't see my past, I couldn't feel my past. I couldn't understand my past. So I thought I would put myself into the environment where those people of my age when I started I can look in the very moment.

Speaker 2: 7:12

And I took a job as an overnight counselor at an adolescent recovery facility. I spent four years there and then moved on. Because I didn't have a credential, I didn't have a professional license. Because I didn't have a credential, I didn't have a professional license. So the next job I took was as a unit director for a Boys and Girls Club. Now, adolescent recovery was 13 to 17,. Court appointed Judge was sending you there. Boys and Girls Club is six to 18.

Speaker 2: 7:37

So that's where I learned that not only was it fun, but I found out I had a gift, and the gift was being authentic, and you have to be authentic if you're going to work with kids. They would come to me and tell me the demons that you speak of, because all of us absolutely have it and we got them from childhood and we got them from childhood. And so seeing that and finding myself after eight years working with folks sometimes they come and I didn't have answers and I did not find that acceptable. So I decided let's go back to school and get the credentials, get the understanding, get the education. And we moved forward. So there was a 10-year period, or actually about eight-year period. I got the bachelor's, the master's, the license and the board certification, and it wasn't because I wanted to look good, I wanted to have the answers.

Speaker 2: 8:36

When a youth came to me and said something that you know, at that stage, prior to the education, I didn't have answers and that was like no, that ain't going to work. So we grabbed a package and put it in gear and went back to school. So that's the foundation. Where did it all come from? Now you're asking with, how do you get it into youth? Today I've come to find out, depending on the age if I'm working 18 to 29, that area, right there, I found, is what I had in my childhood and youth. That is not here anymore is a rite of passage. The rite of passage is ancient. I spoke in a book about Joseph Campbell and I didn't make this thing up, I just borrowed. You know, don't remake the wheel. And so I'm dealing with youth, that I'm coming to terms with their lack of that transition and I have found not with all, but a large portion I go back and utilize my military career, where we had that transitional point piece, that we all went to boot camp and what came down from it was that I saw the books were the Art of War, sun Tzu, the Prince Machiavelli, the 48 Laws of Power.

Speaker 2: 10:10

You start talking like that to a youth that didn't get that information and they bite. And the second you know, I'm just putting it out there. I'm not saying this is what you got to do, I'm saying did you know this? This is what you got to do. I'm saying did you know this? And then I leave it to them because in the end I can't fix anybody that doesn't say I have a problem, right, so I have to get you to that space.

Speaker 2: 10:35

And this, contrary to popular belief, when somebody comes to me and it's our first session, whatever brought you there is the lie. You're coming, yes, you're giving me something that is not the truth and my responsibility is to see through that and go find your demon right and understand this. When I got the demon and I find I'm a demon hunter yes, here's the thing, I hold it down and I I don't demand, but I say it's in. You kill this thing, right. I leave it to you because you need to know that once I'm no longer in the picture, you still have an internal nexus that you follow through. You came to understand, you did something to change it, you stuck with it and you now can do this over again.

Speaker 1: 11:27

That is the key and that is the purpose of those rites of passage. I feel like a lot of times in the West, because we don't have them, we see them as some ethereal, like spiritual, like woo-woo thing that does something more than we can comprehend. And, yeah, maybe, sure it does. But one of the most basic things that it does is it allows us to transition from being a person who is taken care of by our family unit to a person who can take care of ourselves. That is that transition from like I am dependent to I am more independent. And without those rites of passage, without having actually experienced no, when I'm screwed and I can do it for myself without that experience, you kind of stay screwed because you're afraid to get screwed, which means you're afraid to take risks, you're afraid to do any of the things that you need to do to grow.

Speaker 1: 12:24

That, literally, to me, is the most baseline analogy for what those rites of passages were doing. They're allowing us to be independent adults. They're putting you in a situation where you have to figure it out on your own. And once you get on the other side of that, there's a fundamental shift in your own self-concept as to what you are capable of, and that is like the demons come in. All, all flavors, right, but there's something like that that's like in the core of many of them, like that fear of I'm not gonna be able to, whether it's because I'm too much or too little or too whatever. That's really, that's awesome. I hadn't quite put it together in that plane of a connection before. Thank you for that. That's marvelous.

Speaker 2: 13:16

So let me try this one too. Now, this is the one that I'll do in therapy, but I'm not. I don't do it in this kind of context, but I'm going to throw it out just because we're in a place. So the population right now does not like science. The population right now sees psychology and therapy as a science. Ie, there's a stigma to it.

Speaker 2: 13:41

It is unfortunate, because the fact of the matter is that rite of passage had a purpose deep down, and that was to take a eight, nine, 10, 11 year old boy from his mother, put him with the men and then the men transitioned him. And here's where it is. This is not actually—this is you know I—in my mind. I'm holding that what needs to occur is we need to kill mom from that boy so that he could become a man and in becoming that man, he can understand that— it's not mom. Mom is gone. We killed her not physically but spiritually.

Speaker 2: 14:29

And why is that? Because that boy who has detached from mom can now be the man that the woman needs us to be. We're no longer got a mommy issue and the wife has to deal with. No, that rite of passage is sacred, that rite of passage is ancient and that rite was for that reason is to separate you from mom, so that you could become what you needed to be for, not mom, but the woman that you bring into your life. So I don't know, because I can see people going I want to shoot me on this one, but here's the thing.

Speaker 1: 15:10

That's the science, that is the ancient reason why we did that except through the lens of evolution, and that's like it makes a lot of sense to me. And that's that's what I meant by the like, our, our dependence, mostly on mom right, it's that dependence and learning to become independent and going from being a taker to a giver or at least, or at least, switching what we're taking from, instead of taking from the family unit, we're taking from the environment around us to give to the family units. Whatever that may be, you got it. I love that. So when? How do you know when a person is having a moment where they're getting that bit of clarity and they're like taking the next step, Like how do you know when it's beginning to sink in?

Speaker 2: 16:15

You know what that's the Jones? I'm a recovering addict and I'll call it. You know what that's the new Jones? That's what I found when I started working with youth Cause. You got that aha moment. That's a kid. All of a sudden he's looking at you, looking for the answer and all of a sudden his eyes, kind of you, become blurred and he's like oh, oh, yeah. And when I see that man, I clear out. But I, before I clear out, I want to get as much of that as I can, because I can't take that from them. I can't say you got that because of me, you got that because of you and I am stepping back. But oh man, do I live for that moment?

Speaker 1: 16:58

Yes, I, oh, I know exactly what you mean. I know exactly what you mean. That moment, really, it is magical and and there is something in the eyes, there is a shift of attention from being really drawn into whatever it is that you're saying to. They get pulled into themselves and then the connection is made in their own mind and that's the only way. That's the only way through it, like a guru or whatever might be able to hand you, like this piece of information. But unless you work for it yourself, it's not going to click in, it won't ratchet in and be usable.

Speaker 2: 17:30

There you go and that see, that's the, that's the art. The art says that once you got it, there's a certain rules to it, and art cannot be what it is when you hold on to it. You need to let go and let it be Agreed.

Speaker 1: 17:48

Yeah, you have to you have to you. We create out of our own, like desire and need at least. And that's that's the way I feel as a, as a musician and a songwriter and having written my book, like I write it, I wrote it out of my own thing and writing it was precious, like that process was precious. But once that process of writing it is done, it's not for me anymore, it's for everybody else and I can't be precious with it, like the end. But that's, this is part of that. That self, that self-directed, honorable life is going. I'm not making this for someone else, I'm making this because it's for me and it feels right for me. And if someone else loves it, huzzah. And if you make something like you mentioned, with your authenticity, people will love it.

Speaker 1: 18:41

Children have no choice. They smell inauthenticity from a mile away and they will call you out in the most brutal way possible. And I think that's and that's true for all traumatized people, because in all of us there is that child right. In all of us there is that angry, bitter, hurt child that had whatever happened to them. And so when, when we see that inauthenticity, suddenly 37 year old me turns into a nine-year-old bratty child and is like but it's there. So, if, if and I think that that's an important thing to keep in mind for any of us, because I I truly believe that a creative process is really important for any of us, because I truly believe that a creative process is really important for any of us in recovery like doing something creative like, and it doesn't.

Speaker 1: 19:35

That doesn't necessarily mean art, but you've got to do something that has an art to it, which what you're doing has an art to it. Coaching has an art to it. Of course, any form of art does, but if we focus on making what feels good for us, that is a true expression of ourselves, and then be less precious with it once it's done, hand that out, and then you get to another place that is so fulfilling for us, one of those three things that we know a human being has to have in order to find peace, um, and be happy in the end of life, one of which is purpose. And if you can create this thing and other people like it and the only reason you created it was because you liked it and it felt like you, that that's kind of that's pretty close to purpose. That's like of, that's pretty close to purpose. That's like you know. That's that. There's the ikigai. That's the Japanese concept of like what you're good at, what you can make money at and what the world needs. When those three things line up.

Speaker 2: 20:39

You know where else that that's found, for had it not been for my addiction, I perhaps would not have come to understand it. But look, with what I do I cannot discuss politics or religion. It's tapu. But that does not preclude me from opening up spirituality, because through spirituality you are creating in the artistic realm. It doesn't, it isn't based in you know, it's not based in our kind of math. It's based in the kind of math that you get in the quantum realm, the one that doesn't make sense. Meaning, because you're right, you have to have.

Speaker 2: 21:29

The youth that I worked with in the first eight years gave me purpose and meaning. And because it was, I was coming from such a horrible place that I felt the need to give back to them. So, getting that education, it wasn't for me. I got the education so I could be there for them. Because that purpose and meaning had to be solidified. And once you've got it, the Boys and Girls Club taught me the most.

Speaker 2: 21:58

When I found early on I was not connecting with these youth when I had the adolescent recovery facility, they had to talk to me because they're corner pointed. You ain't leaving until you talk to me. Well, boys and Girls Club is a different animal and the one day that I saw when it turned around was I saw one of these kids. Outside of my Boys and Girls Club were tall pines and the kids are. I'm watching them climb up and it just hit me. I go running over and I hit the tree and I end up going to the top, where they won't go, and I'm above looking down at them, going huh. And then, instead of handing them up, I go back down and say you just saw me figured out and down I go. Go back down and say you just saw me figured out and down I go. And it was a spiritual moment Because when I came down they went up and they went up to a place where they hadn't gone before because they didn't see it before there. What?

Speaker 1: 23:04

else do you need to say, say yeah, absolutely. Uh, it's weird, you know, but before we started recording, um, I, I, we were talking a little bit and I and I said that line of like you know, in order to help somebody, you only need to be one step ahead of them, and I feel like this ties back into that. We can just show other people what's possible. We need not be perfect, no, we need not be perfect exactly like we are. Not, we cannot, but yet we still think we need be. Um, but we don't. We just need to be one step ahead. We need to show somebody what's possible, not in 10 years, not in 40 years, but tomorrow.

Speaker 1: 23:46

10 years and 40 years is inspiring, but what's possible tomorrow is what I can sink my teeth into and that's what can get me through the shit of the day, absolutely. You know, being inspired for what's possible in 40 years, like that's cool, cool story, bro. But like, yeah, seeing a person who's just a step or three ahead of you, who's like yeah, let's go, come on, that's like we need that and we need I'm, I'm a big, I sign off every podcast with stay curious and stay uncomfortable, because I I really believe that staying in discomfort. You know, find it, seeking your discomfort and going headfirst into it. That doesn't mean that we don't like also enjoy safety and comfort and those things, but we must engage in discomfort because that that is one of the things that we are missing. That is the. That's a big part of what those transition periods are for. It's a purposefully built mountain of discomfort that you have to go through at some age. That's chosen by your culture and what's important for you, to survive in that culture.

Speaker 2: 25:04

Because you spark a thought. I had 32 years of sobriety and I went out, and that was five years ago. And the last five years have been completely different and more meaningful than the prior Because that demon. I had killed many of them, but I didn't kill the one and so I went back out. I got the families in recovery. I had two brothers. They came to me and said look, if you want to figure this out, we're here for you, but if you're going to use, don't come around. You know the tough love.

Speaker 2: 25:47

And so I relapsed for three weeks and in that time frame I saw that you cannot hide from yourself and that authenticity. What had happened was I had believed that I was something and somebody because I'm a therapist and all these people they come to me, my caseload is always full, they think I'm wonderful, and I made the mistake of listening to them Instead of listening to myself saying you know what? You're just a minute away from using again. And I didn't see that and it hit me like a ton of bricks and I was just flabbergasted. And then, when it began the time of coming back in, yeah, it started with me and it started in the inside and it started me going somewhere and saying I need help. And when you? When that is done, you are open for a change in your life, and that doesn't matter where in your life it is. Don't ever think that you're you've arrived. Live every day, like you said, uncomfortable, seeking to understand the why of the day the why of the day.

Speaker 1: 27:16

I like that. The why of the day, that's fun. The why of the day I like that. The why of the day, that's fun. Yeah, it's like what is it today? What's it going to be today? What's the purpose today? Why is it that You're here? I purposefully built into Rethinking Broken my book. It's about childhood drama and I specifically set up the book and I tell people early on I'm not going to tell you my deepest- darkest secrets and I don't want you to tell me yours.

Speaker 1: 27:53

You can't Look, you're reading my book, so I can't read whatever it is that you're going to say. Can't read, but like whatever it is that you're going to say. But either way, what happened isn't actually important because, especially once I got into the science of implicit versus explicit memory and what's like recallable and what's not recallable and how these things live in our nervous system and all of that going, you can live, you can, and many, many, if many of us, if not most of us, live with these implicit memories in our nervous system that are unexplainable and we don't have a explicit, like articulable, whatever you want to, however you call that memory of an event, and just because you're not able to describe the event and you don't have a conscious, recallableable memory of it does not mean that it didn't happen. So, ultimately, if we just understand our patterns of behavior now, here and today, at whatever our age is, then we can observe those patterns and watch when they come up. And for me, everything is context dependent. Look at the context of when we get triggered and when we like, flip out or do, do whatever, and we can learn from there. But we don't need to revisit those horrible old memories. We don't need, like we, we don't need to be constantly digging into the why we do sometimes and like in each day, I like that for each day. I like the why of today.

Speaker 1: 29:26

But I think for me, I got used to, I got so used to digging into why, and I know that this is mostly just because of me as a person that I eventually wound up in what I just called mental masturbation. I was like this is just mental masturbation. I'm just going in circles over the Y, over and over and over again, and at some point I just had to go. This is what I'm living with. This is the living memory in my nervous system. This is how I react, and Y isn't going to help me undo that. But I can recondition these, these responses, without ever telling a soul about some things, and you can, and it feels amazing.

Speaker 1: 30:13

I was lucky enough to have a person who did want to hear my story, who did make me feel like I mattered and made me feel special right around that age group of people that you help with, and that was enough for me to go okay. You know what? Even if I can't describe it, I'm living with these symptoms in my nervous system and that's what makes my life difficult now. So if I can just retrain these responses that all came from somewhere, like I didn't make them up, I'm not like, because for a long time I I, a lot of us do the whole I didn't have it that bad. My childhood wasn't that bad. Other people had it worse, which is always true. There's always someone else who had it worse.

Speaker 1: 30:58

But as I said to a coworker one time who I was very mean to, just as like a joking way, we were both in military. It was a thing you know. But I told her I was like look, just because you're standing next to the devil, doesn't make you a saint honey Cause. She was like I'm not mean, you're mean, but that's the way that it goes. Oh man, this has been a really fantastic conversation. So how can people find you? How can people?

Speaker 2: 31:23

Yeah, I have a nonprofit. It's called Honorbound Academy. You put the word the T-H-E in front of Honorbound Academy. I'll lower case. At the end of the Honorbound Academy, put a dot and an org and what you'll find there are my blogs, are my books, are who I am and all the various platforms that I have that I'm sharing with folks on multiple levels. And that is on thehonorboundacademyorg is an email that you can send to me. Now, that box is always full, but on any given day I do the eeny, meeny, miny, moe and I answer a couple, so that and I go through far more to see where's the pattern. You know what are people asking for, what's going on, and that is where you can find me and where I look forward to connecting with all those out here that are watching us have a really nice conversation.

Speaker 1: 32:30

Thank you very much. If there's one piece of information that you could leave people with, what would that be?

Speaker 2: 32:44

As troublesome and as dark as today is, there still is, and always has been and always will be, hope, no matter what your issue, know that there is something, somebody, someplace that is going to have. You feel that there is a reason to get up tomorrow morning and it will be hopeful. But you have to go find it, so I will leave it at that.

Speaker 1: 33:18

Oh, I love that. Thank you so much and thank you listeners for joining us. Thank you for watching and remember stay curious and stay uncomfortable.

Speaker 2: 33:35

Thank you, so you.