Leader of one, leader of many.

The first domino fell a couple weeks ago when I was attending a 2-day leadership course in Aarhus, where I realized how I had messed up in a handful of my close relationships, and how I had to get my heart in the right place toward these people I love (thanks Mette, I’m incredibly grateful for your generous being).

When the first seminar day ended, I wanted to visit my grandma, since she’s buried in Aarhus and I’m rarely there anymore, now that she’s gone and I live in Copenhagen. I intuitively grabbed an apple from the fruit-basket on the way out, and headed toward the cemetery to ease my heart a bit. There was a lot of things I never got to tell her before she left. A lot of feelings I knew I hadn’t processed since loosing her.

As I’m standing next to her grave, looking out over the stunning lake and blood orange sunset, I start talking to her. Slowly, it’s like my heart opens, and feelings start flooding out. I’m crying, I’m stumbling over my words. I’m hurting and feeling deep relief simultaneously.

When I finally caught my breath and had a pause in the emotional flood, I remembered the apple in my pocket. She used to peel them for me. It’s my most consistent and loving memory of her. I ate half, left the rest on the grave for her. For old times' sake.

A small piece of my heart healed that night.

After having said my goodbyes, I knew in my heart that I needed to speak to my mom. There was things in there that I had to share with her too, while I still had access. I couldn’t muster calling her, because I didn’t feel in control of my feelings, but building on the momentum I had, I recorded a voice-note instead, sobbing my way through all the difficult words and feelings I suddenly had access to. I’m really proud I found the courage to share my heart openly with the woman who literally made it. Made me. And our conversation that followed was incredibly healing.

Now a couple weeks later, I’m in this sauna, on a self-leadership retreat in Sweden with the incredible Pernille Lotus and Nicolai Moltke-Leth, ready to test myself, to see if I can find the courage to open up and let it out among others. Among the most judgemental group of people - “strangers”.

And like a tiny miracle, Pernille started playing a very untraditional saunagus song, “My Immortal by Evanescence”, which just happens to be one of the songs I heard A LOT when I was young, when I wanted to feel something painful. Suddenly I could see the young boy in my mind, who had made a subconscious decision to hide away his feelings, to better fit in. To protect himself.

The deep sadness in that song made me realize that I was so ashamed of his feelings. So ashamed, that I hadn’t dared to show them to anyone, ever. At least not willingly. I felt I had let him down. Abandoned him.

There’s not a chance in hell that I will keep doing that, knowing what it is I’m doing to myself. No more. I want to be a man who is able to love himself, fully. Not just the parts of him that are pretty and powerful. Also the parts that are vulnerable and shameful.

If I can’t love myself fully, how will anyone else ever be truly able to?

So I started talking to him in my mind, saying all the things he longed to hear, while I imagined holding him in my arms.

“I love you. I have your back. I will be right here with you, even when it’s tough. I might get lost, but I promise to come back to you, always. I love you. Your feelings are not too big or scary for me anymore. I can handle everything you hold inside. I will never hide you away anymore, just because you have big feelings. I’ll display them proudly.”

And then suddenly, I had that same open heart as I experienced with my grandma and my mom, but this time toward myself. I kept talking to him.

With every breath in, “I love you.”

With every breath out, “I release you.”

“I love you. I release you. I love you. I release you.”

And then the feelings came knocking again, and I found the courage to let them out. First subtly, in control. Then a bit more as I felt no judgement in the room. And then when I was encouraged to let it out, to let go of control, I found the courage to crack open completely.

And in my full glory and misery of crying my heart out in front of others who might judge me as weak, I wasn’t ashamed, like I thought I would be. I was proud. I felt a deep and profound love toward myself that I’ve never experienced before. I was home in myself, for the first time.

And 15-20 minutes later, when I had no more to let out, I spent the last round in the sauna embracing what I had just allowed to happen, while still speaking to him. Intuitively my words changed with every breath.

“I love me. I am home. I love me. I am home.”

And right there, in that moment, I found my key. My mantra. Four sentences that can rip open my heart, and help me find my way home to heal the wound again.

I spoke those four lines to myself hundreds, if not thousands of times that weekend. And since, it’s been the first words in my mind when I wake up, and the last before I drift off to sleep.

It’s been the words that has allowed- and encouraged me to take action twice since, in vulnerable situations I previously would have convinced myself not to step into. And both experiences have been incredibly connecting, inspiring and healing.

The man who’s not able to cry, is not able to process deep and strong emotions, and that becomes a ticking bomb over time. The more intense your life is, the faster that bomb will tick. Processing emotions is the pressure-valve. Without it, the bomb eventually goes off in the boardroom, the bedroom, or the doctor's office.

Crying is not the goal in itself, but there’s a big difference between not wanting to, consciously choosing not to, and not being able to. Crying, when needed to process difficult emotions, helps us become stronger, lighter, more balanced, more focused, more loving and more connected.

So to me, the ”truth” most of us learned while growing up, that “real men don’t cry”, is a recipe for making hard but brittle men. Men who explode, or implode under too much internal pressure. That’s not the characteristics of a “real man” if you ask me.

A “real man” can be many things, but to me, he is always accountable, dependable and deeply connected - to himself and the people he serves.

A man who is not connected to himself might believe he’s serving others. Mostly, he’s serving himself in the pursuit of feeling “good enough”, proving someone wrong or becoming powerful because he once wasn’t.

But that will never truly be serving others, even if your actions are helpful for others, you are still serving your own insecurity. Like I have for so many years.

When I decided to build Foundry, I had a good hard look at myself, and where I didn’t live up to the standards I want to set for the future men of Foundry. My ability to open up, and love myself fully was one of the big lacking areas. So I am stepping into the heat first. I cannot ask a man to enter a forge I’m afraid to stand in myself.

As one of my favorite quotes read;

I’m excited to become the leader of myself, who’s capable of raising the bar higher for what it means to be a “real man”. Reach out somehow if you’re aligned or want to learn to love yourself again, truly.

I’m here for you brother. 🙏