We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Christopher “kasper” Tobias a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Christopher “Kasper”, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
As someone who is a Psych Major, I can tell you that I have read a lot about resiliency and why some people are resilient and others remain within the confides of their “failures”. Studies will tell you that “failures” are actually the motivating factor behind resiliency. My own personal trauma has been a catalyst in my resiliency, believe it or not. I have learned that no matter what I have faced in my life, that being persistent will always trump fear. As someone who has been previously incarcerated, a former addict and a gang member, coming out of that alive and proving that I wasn’t just another failed statistic, truly embedded the idea in my mind that I can get through anything. And I would be remiss if I did not point out that as a skateboarder, skating creates so much of my resiliency. Understand that the non-makes are just as important as the make is in important lesson in resiliency.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
At the moment, I’m in my Junior year as an Undergraduate in Psychology at UCSD. I plan to go on to my Masters, then my PsyD in Psychology. I am beyond fascinated by the various (and seemingly) infinite modalities of healing trauma. From EMDR to Somatic treatment, we all have the ability to heal our trauma. Healing other’s trauma is important for me, specifically within the institutional sector such as prisons. Although there is an abundance of resources for people who are impacted by the prison system, there isn’t much offer in terms of 1 on 1 treatment for those individuals suffering from CPTSD or PTSD. One may learn to become a law abiding citizen, but still be restrained and tether to certain issues because of their unprocessed trauma. This is one of the reasons I offer my podcast, which, for the most part discusses these issues. I do however mix it up with interviews with people that are the “Misfits, Miscreants and Outcast of Society”, not all of them have been to prison. But it is important to share stories from those who have lived on the fringes of society and have come back to relay to others what is important in life. These people are inspiring Another person that inspires me is my brother, Brian! He is in prison and on his 22nd year locked up! But he is studying psychology and we plan on creating a nonprofit offering Therapy to those in the system and impacted by it, when he gets out, which should be in two years!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
My advice is not to listen to your inner critic. And do not become complacent. Continue to learn and be open to new experiences. Being an individual in life is very important. Solitude is very important. That sounds crazy coming from a person whop spent half a decade in it’s confides, but it’s true. You can find out what is important for you in that silence. I believe we all have a higher self. We can reach that part of ourselves, but it takes time and deep effort in its exploration.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker. I’m actually editing a podcast/youtube video on it right now. It should be up by the time this post. Maybe y’all can add the link here? But, the main bit of wisdom in it that I can share is that: you are not your emotions. I know this seems counter to what our present day culture is teaching us, but we are not. So much of our emotions are rooted in our experiences from childhood, and in particular it may stem from traumatic events. Trauma doesn’t always look like a Veteran coming back from war. It can be something that looks like “your dad didn’t come to your basketball games as a kid” and you felt abandoned by that. So that may transmute itself into your present day relationships and have a feeling that people that in your life may do the same. The feeling may be there and feel real, but it is not. And so we may react from that place of fear and create conflict when there isn’t any. I see a lot of people in today’s culture responding this way, with very unhealthy and irrational emotional outburst. But, this is why I say, always be open and examine what is going on internally and really think about those emotions, because sometimes they are not “real” they are echos from our trauma from the past
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