Season 1 | Episode 22 | Special Guest, RT Therapist Steven Perez

Lance, what's going on?

Rhett, it's good to see you, my friend. Where. Where are you, bro?

Tell everybody I am in Spokane. I was about to say moving, but I'm not there yet. I am. My daughter is at orientation for Gonzaga. So this is my pre. I'm getting preach. I'm getting training for drop off in three and a half weeks. And if indications are accurate, I'm going to be very emotional in three and a half weeks and for a period of time. So it's good to have this practice run a little bit. Yeah, put her off at the dorm and being gone for the last couple of days. And so that's what I'm doing. And then I'm talking to you too.

That's great. The Gonzaga place of love. So when you finish, like, like, once someone has been to spoken Spoken like, do they get like a shirt that says I have spoken spelled.

Like Spokane and it's Gonzaga. Zaga. Not Zaga.

Gonzaga.

The Zags.

Ah. Oh, well. Well, we're not talking about. I mean, that's good stuff. But, guys, we got a good visitor today. Are you excited about today, Rhett?

Yeah, and we are episode 22. This is episode 22. We got a special guest for us, Lance.

Still figuring it out. Yeah. This is number 22. That's awesome. Guys. I am stoked for today. I've been, like, been waiting for this day because we have a true renaissance man with us. Guys, today we have Stephen Perez. This is one of my teammates who came to my first RT consultation group way back in the day. I'm sure you'll be talking about that later on, but Stephen is a big fan of this guy. When it comes to experiential stuff, you know, the, you know, Terry makes that big saying of like, you know, you know, when you don't know what to do, get up. Right. And. And I think Stephen, like, gets up all the time. He's always like. He's always running around his room doing stuff. You can just, like, you walk by the office and you hear all this stuff going on. Is. He is a, you know, a true. What's the word? A maestro, I would say, in the therapy room. So, yeah, no pressure today as you share Stephen. But, yeah, we're stoked. We're so stoked to have you, Stephen. Welcome. Welcome.

Oh, I'm excited to be here with you guys. It's been a joy to kind of listen in over the past 21 episod and see a lot of familiar faces. Like, that's kind of Been my favorite part is getting to get reconnected to a lot of people that I've met over the years and meet some new people and just hear all the awesome voices that are part of the RT community.

Yeah, man, it's been fun. What do you think, Rhett?

Yeah, I. Yeah, I feel like I've been re. Energized over the last, I don't know, six, seven months kind of leading into the summit and then launching the podcast. Like, it's been really cool to connect with everyone, to not feel so alone and isolated. And the consult group you all started, ours is not a consult group. It's just kind of a connect time. Officially we do some, you know, unofficial consulting on cases, but most time it's just to connect. And I started a DFW initially. Now it's a Texas RT Zoom group once a month. And that was inspired by that massive email that Steven sends out every time I'm like, I gotta connect people. So this is what this is for and I'm enjoying it. And, you know, if you want to hop on video, maybe Stephen will give us a tour later. His office is pretty, pretty sweet looking, by the way.

Dude, thank you.

Like I said, he's a Renaissance man.

Yeah. So let's, let's jump in because I always like to hear background history, how everybody gets to rt because everyone's got a different route, you know.

Yeah.

And it's cool to hear how we come to this place where we, you know, restoration therapy is, is our, is our life, essentially. So, Stephen, tell us a little bit about what was the, you know, when did you first hear about RT and what was that journey like for you?

Yeah. So I'm going to be added to the list of guests who did the kind of pastor to therapist pipeline. So. Yes. Yeah. Out of working in ministry and meeting with families and students and just seeing a lot of the needs that were showing up in the church, it kind of helped me recognize, you know, well, if you're not in a church community, how are you getting those needs met? And then even just some of the things that were in the church were outside the scope of what I could handle pastorally. So that kind of pushed me back into getting my master's in clinical counseling. I started that program in 2010 and like a lot of things in my life, I take the long road and had a three year pause where my wife and I were overseas for three years working in a special needs orphanage in Romania, and then came back and finished in 2015. And after finishing my Program just felt like I had a lot of knowledge of how to sit with people, but didn't necessarily have a framework for what does it look like to help people move? What does it look like to help people grow and actually heal? And so that kind of kicked me off on this journey of just really kind of hopping into any training that I could find. And you know how I got into rt? Well, in some ways, I'm. I'm on a call right now. I'm on a podcast with the two people who kind of got me into rt. So back in the day, Rhett, you had a podcast that I had followed because we have some mutual friends. And so I had always known of your online presence. And Lars Rude shout out to Lars and Preston and Katie. Yeah. And so, yeah, I was listening to your podcast and hearing you starting to talk about this thing called restoration Therapy, and I thought, well, I. I should look into that. And I found a training up at Fuller in Pasadena and, you know, signed up for this training and drove out there. And I remember showing up and being kind of struck with this fear, like, I am not qualified to be here. Like, that they're gonna notice that you don't have what it takes. Like, this was a mistake in registration. You're not a real therapist. And then as Terry started getting into the content, I was like, oh, he knows. And he's talking about all this pain that I'm experiencing.

Yeah, that's what I was feeling all the way here.

Yeah, all of them.

Yeah, yeah. He was like, he knows. He can read me. This is terrifying. And. And so, yeah, level one was just kind of like, all of a sudden, you know, these years of education had kind of come into focus for me, and it really helped me understand. This is what it looks like to help people move from A to B. This is what it looks like to help people move from a place of pain to a place of peace, from dysregulation to regulation. And then out of that. That training, you know, I always say Lance is the great connector. And being a part of the team here is just evident day in, day out. And I'm super blessed by that and was still kind of trying to figure out what my associateship was going to look like and working through hours. And I got an email to an invite to a bunch of San Diego therapists to come to this restoration therapy consult group in Carlsbad. And again, that old pain was kind of activated for me of, oh, no, no, no, I can't go to that. I barely finished the Level one training. I have, like, no hours under my belt. I'm just figuring this stuff out. And with the nudge from my wife, I. I went and it was just an awesome little group. And back then, it actually took place in this office that I'm in right now. That's crazy. Yeah, Lance's old office. And so, yeah, there was just kind of a handful of people who were trying to figure out this restoration therapy thing and got plugged in. And so, yeah, I have kind of that journey into RT through really, the training model and not going through fuller. And so, yeah, reading the books and getting into the model that way, and families and forgiveness and advances and techniques. And then, yeah, joined the practice here. Lance, was that 2019, 2018. Somewhere in there? 2019, I think.

I think you're right. Yeah. Somewhere in there.

Yeah.

Feels like you've been here forever.

Yeah. But that first consultation, I want to say, was in 2016. Yeah. You can't get rid of me, Right. Yeah.

You're the second. Well, and guest in a row. Chuck Roberts last episode, talked about the experience, like, everyone. Like, you're trained how to sit with people and listen and be empathetic, but you're sitting there thinking, I don't know what to do. I don't have a model or a theory to practice out of or something that feels actionable to me.

Yeah, yeah. And I think one, like restoration therapy just provides this beautiful framework of how we are able to name things, give language to what our clients are experiencing. Also very orienting for me as a young therapist. But then what I've also really loved about kind of my journey in RT is it's not just this cognitive roadmap. I mean, it can be, but it's also this very profound model that allows you to be really expansive in the room and be very creative and, you know, not help people just kind of understand or know their truth, but it provides us with the opportunity as clinicians to help people actually experience their truth in the room, which is wildly fun for me. Right. Like, I. I think of all those experiences that I had on Sunday mornings, you know, sitting in churches, and you hear these beautiful messages, and you go, oh, man, that's such a good message. And, you know, I hope Rhett heard that. And I heard. I hope will answer that because they're such awesome guys. But for me, man, I don't know if that message applies to me. I don't know if God really loves me. Right. And I think sometimes that happens in therapy where we have these clients who Come in. And as therapists, we can be encouraging and nurturing and validating, and it probably works for a little while. And maybe it's just kind of enough, you know, hope to get them to their next appointment next week. But to actually help somebody experience and embody those truths, that's the stuff that makes me super excited about rt.

Totally.

Did you like. And Lance can maybe speak on this too, since he knows you really well and works you. But did you come in wired to rt, like already a pretty experiential person and that felt pretty natural to you to get up and to move around the room and try different things? Or was there, was it. Was that a. I don't know, a challenge when you started moving into the model? Like, this is something I need to, like, work on more and grow more into.

Yeah. I mean, I think there are parts of me that are wired that way, but it's definitely a thing to focus on and pay attention to growing. I mean, you know, my background in my undergrad was really this kind of wandering hodgepodge of education where I. I did creative writing, I did kind of this history sociology degree at UCSD and then my work in ministry. If you're trying to teach to junior hires or high schoolers or young adults, it kind of flows. Forces you to be pretty creative in the room. Right. That if you just stand up front and start speaking for 20 minutes, they've tuned you out. So. And. And then even more so, being overseas and working in a special needs orphanage, everything becomes an illustration, everything becomes interactive. You get used to kind of, how am I engaging with these kids so that they can benefit from what it is that we're trying to offer. And so I think I'm naturally just kind of creative and I enjoy that. And what I've always said about my training, in particular Level two training in rt, I felt like Terry gave me permission.

Yeah.

To do things that felt really intuitive to me, but it's just so outside of. Of kind of how we're classically trained. Right. To, you know, be more Rogerian and kind of tuned in with your client. And thank you for sharing and I'm so glad that you trust me with this story and I'm here with you, but to actually. Let's try something different, like let's. Let's see if we can make some movement around that story. So level two just gave me a ton of permission. And then, you know, being supervised by. By Lance, you know, if I'm a maestro, I don't know enough of what's higher than a maestro. But Lance is wildly creative too. And, and what Lance actually provided me with was I, I would get kind of sucked into this idea of man, this intervention is like, this has to work. Like, this has to be perfectly executed and the tone has to be right and I need to find my hypnotic injunction and move this person because man, healing's about to take place. And. And Lance was just like, yeah, man, sometimes they don't work and it's going to fail. And that's okay too. Just try. And that permission, it made it so it didn't have. It just becomes very natural and organ panic in the room of, of. Well, I'm hearing you say this, I'm hearing you say it feels like, you know, this is overwhelming and like everything's caving in on you and everything feels so tight. So let's take a blanket and wrap it around you and hold that tight and let's pay attention to that feeling in your body. Now let's move into the story now what do we need to do to release this tension? Right? And then let's do it again or it feels so heavy and you know, let's, let's stack some books on your lap and see what it's like to this late and can we practice? What does it look like to take one book off at a time? What is that truth? You need to get rid of this part and this part and just start kind of practicing with your clients of what does it look like to experience taking off your pain and putting on your truth. And so, yeah, part of it is naturally wired, but there's always ways to, to grow. And there's certainly clients that, you know, it's easy to just sit and chat, right? You connect with them and it's easy to kind of sit down and have a conversation and they can be very heady. And it's just that reminder that, you know, as we were talking earlier, like a performance based identity is, is no identity at all. And to kind of riff off of that statement is Terry.

This is one of our, one of my favorite Terry isms.

Yeah, it's an annoying one to me because I want to tell him, I don't think you've seen me perform yet. Otherwise he would.

I'm good.

I am so, so good. You know, I'll prove you wrong. But, but, but the other kind of riff off of that Terry ism is, you know, better performance isn't going to bring the healing, whether it's to an individual or to a relationship. Right. What's Going to bring the healing is self regulation. So even in those clients that can talk way up here and be very intellectual, that's sometimes more of the challenge for me to then go, I'm going to take this guy that I think I'm probably trying to impress and show that I've got a lot of knowledge and I can talk at his level and say, I wonder if you'll sit down on the floor with me right now and just see if we can experience what it was like to be that little boy in the home or to be in that position when your wife got really angry and you felt powerless. Those are sometimes the things that I think I'm always growing in that it's, you know, pushing myself out of that comfort zone to really help people heal.

That's good. What's going on for you, Rhett?

I was just like, no, but my performance is coming from my truth, man. I'm in the truth here.

Right?

I mean, come on. Some of truth. Yeah. Yeah. I. I was wondering if as many therapists or who listen to this, who are listening right now are like, me, where I do spend a lot of time in session in my head, thinking, I need to do this or I should do this, or. I found myself on the precipice of wanting to jump into something experiential, and then I'll hold back, and then sometimes I won't hold back, and I'll jump in, and it's this great inner, like, dialogue and wrestling. That's like a. A whole other thing that's happening in therapy room besides me working with a client. You know, it's. And that's where rt, I think, really challenged you to grow as a person.

Oh, yeah.

It's like I. It's like once you see something, you can't unsee it. I can't put that back in and pretend like this experiential piece doesn't exist anymore.

Yeah.

So I don't. I don't know if I would imagine a lot of people feel like that in the room, too. It's like, I want to try this. I should try this. No, I won't today. Okay. Today I will.

I. I always find that interesting, too. I feel like in. In session, there's, like, all these, like, moments, right? And. And it's like, oh, man, I have, like, five different things we could do right now. And, like, there's, like, this world of, like, you're listening to your client, but then there's this other world of, like, trying to be like, ooh, this Might be good. We could try this out, you know, where you're. And you're con. Like, it's. It's like this weird interplay of when you're in the therapy room of. Of just, like, going back and forth. I love Terry. Another Terryism is like, you know, it's like baseball, right? You're. That pitch is going to come up again. So sometimes you can hold that intervention in your heart and be like, oh, yeah, we're gonna get you on that one eventually. I know it's coming up. That's all. Like, I'll, like, lock it away, and I'll have all my stuff prepped for it. Like, it's common. It's common, but, yeah, we can get really caught in our heads about, is this right? Is this right?

And I think that's like, you know, that work of self, right? Of, are you practicing your own four steps, Right. That. It. You know, some of my pain stuff that always comes up is that feeling of, you know, I. I don't belong, or I'm not going to be good enough, or, you know, some unsafety that can pop up for me from time to time. And I think, you know, being able to kind of regulate yourself as a therapist in a room, and I got to remind myself, like, well, I'm not perfect, but I'm good enough. Right? I'm not a perfect therapist, but I'm a pretty good therapist. And, you know, I know that I'm chosen. Right. And that's not just like a kind of a heady, theological thing that I say to myself. Like, you know, I sometimes will kind of grip the edge of my chair that I sit in back there, and I remind myself, I didn't apply for this job. Right. Lance went and pursued me and said, I choose you to be here. Right. And I remember my wedding day. Right. I did not force my wife down that aisle. She went willingly. She chose me.

Right.

Right. And so I have these things that I can kind of tie myself back to that kind of give me the courage to go, yeah. If this falls flat. Or, you know, sometimes you get clients who go, this is weird. I don't want to do this. And, you know, yeah, that's okay. I got that wrong. Tell me what happened for you when I. When I asked you to do that. Well, what came up, you know, let me point back to your pain cycle. What are you feeling with me right now? And so there's always just. That's the beauty of RT, is you can't really fail because everything's just an opportunity to dive right back into the pain. Right, what's coming up? What are you feeling? What's the story you're telling yourself right now? And that's what gives me a lot of kind of, I don't know, confidence is maybe the word, or freedom to be creative in the room.

Yeah, it's. I was gonna. Yeah, I was thinking this last weekend I. I spoke at a marriage conference and it's like a two day, it's like kind of a church close to my house that I have, I have a lot of friends on staff and they invited me back to come speak. And the lady who puts it on is she's not a therapist. She's trained to be a therapist, but she's deep into RT and has done a little bit of like, training stuff. And I was like, you know, and I think, I can't remember. There was like, I think they said 200 couples signed up. I don't know how many were there. On Saturday morning when I spoke, it was a little less. But I'm like, I, I prepared for weeks on weeks and I want to do something experiential with like 300 and some people in the room. And I invited them into their pain and peace cycle. It was like, you know, drinking from a fire hose. I threw a lot of information at them. And I noticed it was like, it felt like it was falling flat, like as it was coming out of my mouth, you know. And I even saw one couple get up and walk out during the middle of my talk. And I was literally like in my pain during the talk and regulated myself. And then I had people give me feedback during the experience what that was like for them. And they said things that felt like mechanical. It felt empowering, it felt freeing, it felt weird, it felt awkward. And I just, I was reflecting on that because I walked away from that thinking, oh, this is just another opportunity for me to grow and to stay in my peace and to work through my pain and to take a risk. Because I'm like, I'm not going to get up here and just give another talk. That's just get information. And, you know, that's the big thing with RT that I said to the audience is like, I've learned from Terry and from YouTube, you know, 20% insight is great. We need 80% practice.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so I try to get couples up and do that in the audience. I had a couple come on stage, I tried to practice that and I'm like, if this falls flat, oh, well, you know, and that's really the first time I think that I was okay getting up on stage and like, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But at least I'm doing what I feel like called to do. And that's going on.

I saw a picture of you like you had two hula hoops.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, I use hula hoops sometimes in session to stand a couple in either like one couple and one hula hoop. This like kind of co regulation where you're in the same space. And then I'll have two hula hoops where I put them each in one. Just to kind of visualize and experience what it's like to be self differentiated.

Yeah.

And in some of the marriage conference literature out here in Texas, the whole Re Engage program, they talk about staying in your own circle. Right. Stay in your own hula hoop. Yeah, I just had hula hoops in there and I had a couple come up and stand on stage to represent that, like being in your own space. And I really focused on emotional self regulation, which Ron Deal has been talking about recently, versus the co regulation piece which he writes about in the Mindful Marriage. And it's just, it's a huge topic. I see him writing about it, talking about it more. I see Terry talking about it more. And I was just thinking about. It's. It's a hard thing to untangle. So let's get some hoops up here on stage. Let's try some things. And hopefully that what I'm hearing from you two, hopefully that just gives me confidence in the room. You know, when I go back into the room this next week in practice, you know, just trying new things. I like. I mean, I love your baseball metaphor. This is going to come around again.

Pitch is coming back.

Yeah.

So.

Oh, man. I don't. It's. I. I was wondering, Stephen, if there's, you know, because you've had this journey from pastoral ministry and you talked about having to be pretty experiential in the ministry, even with junior high, high school, young adults and special needs ministry. Is there any, like, theological integration you've been like wrestling with a lot as you. As you are in rt? I guess I'm just wondering if there's like some theology passage, scripture that has really been something that's been pivotal to your journey of like, integrating from your ministry days into your, you know, therapy days?

Yeah, I mean, I think that, Gosh, there's. I'll try to hone in on. On a couple of things. I. I mean, if I kind of.

Just threw a ball up and it's like a, speaking of hoops, like you just threw a ball up. It's like the alley oop of all alley oops.

Yeah, you know, I, I think of, with the kind of, if I, if I tie this in or, or thread this into kind of the experiential component. I'm also fortunate enough to get to supervise and, and help train other therapists. And the thing that I'm, I'm kind of reminding them all the time is it's, it's not our job to change people, that that's actually what God does. Right? That our job as therapists is to be obedient to the things that God is leading us in, to be obedient to our training and our background as clinicians and to be in some ways obedient and honoring to ourselves and who we are as clinicians. And I think when we kind of partner with God and that obedience that gives us freedom to kind of trust that he is going to show up and really do the work. And I look at kind of the four steps in particular and I hope this isn't kind of over spiritualizing the work of rt. Maybe that's not possible, but I look at the four steps as really, this is just kind of like a very systematic understanding of our own sanctification. Right. That, that, you know, here are the things that the Lord is continuing to work on in your life. You know, I use this example sometimes with my clients. I don't typically have a problem with self disclosure. And in the earlier parts of my life as a teenager, even as a young adult, I struggle with a lot of anger issues. I was, you know, angry at my family situation, angry with my station in life, angry with how hard everything felt. And you know, kind of through some, some therapy, but also just through my own walk with the Lord, a lot of that really started to, to change. And I, I don't think most people these days, Lance, you're welcome to correct me, would describe me as like an angry person anymore. But I had this moment back in the spring. I typically take my two older kids to school every day and it's kind of our little time together and it's, you know, a mile and a half, a little short ride and this car kind of pulled in front of me and I had to slam on the brakes and my 6 year old son in the back, I hear him go, come on lady. And I went, oh man, that's from me, right? Like now this isn't like I'm not a very aggressive driver. I'm not honking at people, I don't have road rage, right? But that was kind of that little thing in me where, you know, while the Lord has done this work and in my pain, you know, when I feel like I don't belong, I can get pretty snarky and angry, you know, that wouldn't even registered on my scale 20, 25 years ago, right? But now I'm looking at that as that needs to change in me, right? And my four steps are how that comes about is to recognize when I feel unsafe or I feel like I don't belong, that anger comes out in me and that still needs to change, right? That's still things, those are things that the Lord is trying to sanctify in me, you know, and to sit with my 6 year old son and go, you said that because I taught you to say that, right? And I often say that because this is what I feel. But here's what I know to be true, right? That I am chosen and that I'm capable of doing my part. And I'm not perfect, but I'm good enough. And you know, I want to practice having more grace for myself and for other people. So maybe we shouldn't yell at the people when we're driving anymore, you know, my six year old go, yeah, sounds good, dad, we'll do that now. And so I love the four steps as kind of this model of sanctification for ourselves. And then it could stop at any time. But this other like this, you know, I love in the Psalms, as we hear, you know, I look to the hills, from where does my help come from, right? My help comes from the Lord. And that psalm in particular is referred to as a psalm of ascent, you know, meaning a psalm that, that the nation of Israel would recite as they are journeying towards the Holy Land during the different festivals, right? And so I think about kind of that as you would travel back in those days, that's dangerous, right? That, you know, it's, you could run out of food, you could run out of water, you could have an injury, you could be attacked, robbed. And to think of kind of this group of people saying, man, if we get sucked into everything that's happening right here in front of us, we will become overwhelmed, right? We have to practice looking up where are we going, what are we setting our eyes on and trusting that he's going to show up for us so that we can keep moving, right? So that we can keep making the next right choice and that's a kind of an integration piece that shows up in a lot of my therapy is there's a lot of stuff that's real and happening right here. The world is a scary place right now. And it's that practice of kind of saying, when I look at this, the only message I have is the message around my pain. I've got to develop the discipline and the habit of looking up to the hills, remembering the truth of who I am, so I can make that empowered choice to continue to move in a direction that benefits me. Otherwise, I'll just get so overwhelmed, they'll lay down on the path and let life take over. So I, I really love. And I'm really bad with numbers, so I, I, maybe you have the. What psalm number that is, but, you know. Yeah, I love that verse when it comes to therapy.

That's good. I was thinking as you were sharing that about your name and Stephen, the first martyr of the Bible, who in the midst of being martyred, looks up to the heavens after preaching, like the first or such a great sermon there, you know, so it's true to form and, and the name. I guess his. His version is the German version, is the V version. What is that? Is that the.

Yeah, I think that's just Americanized. Yeah, we went away from the PH maybe that. Yeah, I've got bad PH levels. I'm unbalanced.

That's good, though. I.

Good one. But I had to Google that, so I don't want anyone.

Okay.

Off the top of my head. Psalm 121.

1.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Lance, I was thinking as he was sharing this whole sanctification, this whole process, like, I think what's interesting about RT that I've just have noticed more recently, I think as I was preparing for that talk, thinking about CO regulation versus emotional self regulation, in that RT differentiates itself from a lot of other models.

Or.

Assessments couples will take about themselves. In the sense where RT is asking you to continually to grow, develop, and change as a person. Where many models or assessments that say, this is who I am as a person, it's like, well, this is who I am. So you have to show up differently for me in order for our relationship to be okay. RT is like, no, we're just going to continue to grow as people. Does that make sense?

No. Yeah. I think there's so many therapy models out there that just like, say, yeah, this is just the way I am. Right. And this is the way it is. You know, and, and they'll have like these soft forms of like, Being better. You know, I think of like, one of my, like one of the big, big therapy models is out there. Now. I'm going to be controversial is.

You've heard of people.

Here we go. Ifs. I'm going to call it out. Like, it's like internal family systems. It's one of these models. It's like, you know, the. The saying on the book is there's no bad parts, right. Like, they. They lack a moral, like, route, like somebody. And it's kind of like you. You have to. It's like a soft acceptance of who you are. Like, and. And the who you are that you're accepting are some of the bad activities. Because a lot of therapy models don't go to the core. Right. A lot of therapy models are stuck on like, oh, your anger is just actually. It's actually that you're. You have a big thing that you need to say. Or your anxiety is telling you something. Your anxiety is driving you insane and your anger is causing a big bomb to go off. That's not good. And that's like, we need to get down to the heart of it. I think it's the gift of restoration therapy. It's like. Like we're not embracing our anger or embracing our anxiety. We're saying, no, I don't want to be that. I want to go to the root, go to my identity and go to my struggle with safety and lean into it so I can move into the person I'm called to be. And I think that transformation mindset just doesn't get come across in models. Like, ifs. It's like this very much high level of like, yeah, this is just who you are. You're just stuck this way. So I don't know if that's making sense.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a lot of. I'm not an IFS expert, me either, by the way, but I balk at kind of the idea that you'll be in therapy for life, if that makes sense. Like, that you need the therapist to continue to help you unpack everything. And I think what RT provides is that, you know. Yeah, a beautiful clinical framework to have really expansive therapeutic experiences and do really deep work, but then it can also be simplified into a deliverable of. And here's what I want you to go practice, right. Not just go back out into the world with the insight that the reason I fly off the handle is because I felt really unloved via my parents divorce and issues in their marriage. Right. But, you know, go and be changed Right. Go. Go and practice doing this different. And. And the four steps are just a huge part of really empowering our clients to go out and practice and say, tell me how you did this week. You know, where did you get activated in your pain? What did you notice around your pain cycle this week? And let's talk about, were you able to regulate yourself or not? And, you know, I think that's one of the things that separates RT apart. But I also like that when you're talking about kind of marriages, you started.

This conversation with like, self regulation versus co regulation. Yeah, I think the regulation emphasizes putting up with.

Yeah, yeah. Or tolerating sometimes. Right. Like, yeah, this is, you know, and I think I see that a ton in the couples work that I do where they're not actually regulating themselves. They're kind of learning to tolerate their partner to a certain extent. Which when I say it that way, people, you know, I'm not doing that. Right. But. But they'll come in and, well, she does this and she does that, and she's so difficult. And, well, you know, well, I'm not getting angry anymore. I'm not yelling at her anymore. I'm not getting frustrated with her anymore. No, you're just internalizing all of that and coming into therapy and then essentially bashing your partner here. You know, that you're. You're not moving yourself into that place of regulation so that you can connect with your partner, nurture your partner, possibly even have to set boundaries with your partner. But those things you cannot do from a dysregulated state. Right. And so the work of learning to self regulate, it's a huge task, but I think it's where we have to go if we want to see relationships thrive, individuals thrive, you know, and that's going to take practice, not just insight. Right. It's going to take real experiences that help our clients know, I can do this. This is what it looks like. This is what it sounds like to do that in a regulated way.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's interesting. I.

Go ahead, Lance.

So this is something I've been playing with. I don't have a good frame with it, so we might have to. Like I said to Stephen a long time ago that sometimes there's. We invite failure. But I've been playing with this idea of, like, there's these, like, there's these two realms of, like, there's selfless. Like, we talk about being selfless and so versus being selfish. And I don't think either one of those are that good. Right. Because I think sometimes when we become selfless, like we are just being nice, right. We're not being kind. They're like we are created for a purpose and a reason. Like there's, there's something that, that we're made for. So I think. But being selfish is like where I have to have everything come my way. I'm trying to figure out like what would that like and maybe this doesn't work. I don't know. This is just kind of something I've been playing with in my like few sessions of like this differentiation between selfless, selfish and you know, what is being fully yourself or being truly authentic. Does that make sense?

Oh well, I, I will tell you what I'm hearing and then you can tell me if it makes, if I heard you correctly, I'll go back to the Terry ism of a performance based identity is no performance at all. You know, and when we talk about performance as a coping action, this is a really difficult one for I would say even clinicians to really totally understand what is the opposite of performance. For a lot of our clients they'll say it means being lazy or it means not trying hard or it means giving up in some ways. But I would argue that the opposite of performance is actually vulnerability. That what performance does is it says I will only allow you to see me through a particular lens. I will only allow you to see me as the best version of myself or the version that I'm comfortable with you seeing. And vulnerability says I show up as my whole self and I trust that you will love me. I trust that you will be safe with me. And that's where you start to be fully seen. Right. Whereas I think sometimes the selfish individual says I'm going to demand that you see me. And the selfless person says, well if I do enough for you, you, you'll see me. But that ability to just be the self is to kind of stop performing and start moving in the direction of vulnerability in your relationships.

That's good. Performance based identity is no identity at all. And so vulnerability is the is, is. I don't know, I keep thinking of the word acceptance. It's just the.

Yeah.

Pure acceptance of oneself and being okay.

Yeah.

And who you are. All warts, everything. Being completely open and vulnerable to the other and to yourself.

Yeah.

I think like Brene Brown, she talked, when she talks about vulnerability, she said she talks about vulnerability means that there's the ability to be wounded. Like to be vulnerable is to like you're literally bringing to you're bringing your Warts, to use your term. Like you're bringing your warts into the room and you're totally exposing them. So they're like, in a way of like that to say, this is me.

Yeah. And I can't.

And I'm not gonna bust out in the song, even though I really want to.

And I'll have to ask Terry sometime if his interactions with Henri Nouwen influenced him in this way. But I, I can't not think about Nouwen in a lot of his writings, specifically in the Name of Jesus, where he's, you know, you are my son, whom I love. With you, I'm well pleased. You are my son, you're my daughter, whom I love. With you, I'm well pleased. And then he's thrust into the wilderness now and says to have to perform, to be spectacular, to be powerful. You know, he's tempted to do these things that he resists. And so this idea that I'm just being completely known and accepted is.

I.

Don'T have to perform for you. I don't know how to get around that. I just think about that a lot. And I wonder, I'll have to ask Terry if some of his interactions with Nouwen, you know, and around performance, if that, if any of that came from that area or not. But I think about that a lot just from a Christian perspective, like, not the work of not performing, just knowing that I'm loved and I'm God's son and that's it. You know, Even when I tell my son at night, sometimes I'm proud of you, he's like, why? Why are you proud of me? I didn't do anything. And I'm like, you're my son, you don't have to do anything. I love you. And he can't wrap his mind around that. You know, it's. And I can't wrap my mind around that sometimes for myself.

Your son's pretty badass, though. Let's be honest.

He's pretty cool.

Yeah, he's a high performer. Yeah. He probably unfortunately picked up some bad habits from his dad watching him move towards performance based identity at times.

So, yeah, dude, both your kids are rock stars.

Well, I'm not gonna pull my wife into this conversation, but when you live with two kind of perfectionist parents who are working on themselves, it's. Kids can pick up all kinds of things.

Oh, yeah.

I'm sure one day we will all be unwinding and, you know, but when I talk to my kids at night and I say, I love you, And I'm proud of you. I want you to know that you're known or valued. I remind myself that I'm trying to. That's the message I need to remind myself of, you know? Yeah. And, you know, I wanted to ask you, Stephen, because we kind of. We haven't really go down there. I want to dive into it because I know, like, you're passionate about couples. We've been talking about emotional co regulation, self regulation. What is it about couples work that you love? Because not everybody loves working with couples, you know.

Yeah.

You seem to love it. Or do people just come to you because you're the man?

I. Well, I think my journey into couples work kind of just came via this very. I don't know, kind of brass tax logistics thing. Of my first associate position, I was doing pro bono work. And so we had kind of couples in distress reaching out, who had really nowhere else to go. And so they were kind of stuck with me. Whereas I think sometimes, you know, shopping for a therapist is an interesting thing. Right. Like, we don't necessarily go to doctors and say, well, do you have asthma? Because I need a doctor who understands what it's like to have asthma. Right. But when we're shopping for therapists, it's like, are you married? How long have you been married? How many kids do you have? Are they teenagers? Do you have a Christian faith? What's your background?

Does your kid have a disease of some type? Does your kid have autism?

Yeah, it could get real specific, right, where we start searching for unicorns. But, yeah, for about two years, I was doing a lot of work with couples who were just, you know, really in hard spots financially, relationally. And it just gave me a lot of opportunity to kind of cut my teeth working with couples. And one of the things that I really, really enjoy about working with couples is it forces me to do the work of RT that with an individual. You know, like a lot of therapists, I feel like I can develop really good rapport with people. You know, Lance referred to me as a Renaissance man. I have lots of different interests across the board, from, you know, poetry to literature to vinyl records. Vinyl records to sports. You know, you will find me most weekends up in the wee hours of the morning watching European soccer. And you'll catch me.

Also roots for the Dodgers, which.

Also root for the Dodgers. Yeah.

Very hard.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't share that one until I was hired already and kept that under wraps. But. But then also, like, just the nature of being a therapist is you're exposed to so many different things, whether it's, you know, anime or video games. And I don't watch or play either of those things, but I know enough about them just from kind of client experiences that sitting with individuals, I feel like I can rely a little bit more on maybe some of the things Chuck was talking about in the last episode of. Yeah, I can connect with you. I can help you feel comfortable, develop good rapport with you, and. And maybe even make myself feel a little bit more comfortable at times. To be totally honest, with couples work, if you over connect with one individual over the other, they're going to feel that and experience that in the room, right? And they're going to feel ganged up on or you're taking his side or you're taking her side. And what couples work really forces my brain to do at least is to say, what is the dysregulation I'm experiencing in the room? Because the thing that I am treating is the marriage, right? Not this person or that person or you need to be more accommodating over here, and you need to understand this person over here. It's, yeah, there, there's trauma here. Yes. There's painful experiences here. And here's what I'm asking you guys to do, right? Is to pay attention to your side of the rope or stay in your lane or stay in your hula hoop and learn to regulate yourself through that pain, right? And so couples work, I think, well, RT just makes couples work so much easier than any other modality because they can start to see and understand that we don't have a thousand different fights. We have the same fight a thousand different, different ways. And it, and we're going right back to. It's going to be one, and I'll say one of these four things. I tend to keep pain and peace cycles fairly concise. I'm a bit of a stickler for this because when dysregulation happens at home, if your pain and peace cycle is like, I feel unloved, devalued, unwelcome, insignificant, like trash. I feel them all. And you have this list of like 10 things that you feel. You have no ability to access that in a time of need. And, and so just helping clients and helping couples recognize one of these four things is going on when this happens. Which one is the loudest one right now? Let's deal with that. And so that, that's why I like couples work, is because it, it really makes me do the work of rt. It really makes me focus and Hone in on what am I witnessing in the room? What is the coping that I'm seeing in the room? Can I drive them and help them give language to what drives that behavior for you? You know, and inevitably, as you're doing that work, the other partner is going to step in it at some point and say something of like, see, I told you you were the problem. Where did that come from? You know, that sounded a bit blamey to me. Here we go, you know, and you, you're just kind of moving back and forth and kind of a bad joke. But, but I would say, yeah, if, if both clients walk away kind of frustrated with me and I've probably done good work, you know, so. Yeah, and from a kind of a, I don't know, I don't know how high airplanes go, 10,000 foot view. I don't know what the actual 30,000, 30,000 foot view. I mean, I just think of my own story, right, that I'm a child of divorce and I know how that's impacted me. And you know, I've seen divorce impact cousins and friends and families. And so I think, man, if we can really work on helping marriages be healthy, right, then I think that's going to impact a generation of children that's going to make the world a better place for my kids to live in. And kind of another little integration piece here is, as you were sharing about your son, I was thinking like, yeah, we always hear that having children teaches you about the love of the father and you don't totally understand that until you have the kids and you see then you just get it right? That like, yeah, I mean, my, my six year old son learned to ride a bike in Yosemite last week. And I mean, I, I think I actually cried because there was just such pride that welled up in me because I knew how hard that was for him and now I'm crying now. But I think marriage teaches us about the love of Jesus, right? That, that here's this person that is committed to me and I continue to wrong you. I continue to, to walk away from the things that you're offering me because I can't get out of myself. And so in couples work, what I really think we're doing is, is, yeah, helping a relationship function better. But from a kind of theological lens, we're helping people understand their relationship better to Jesus better, right? That the thing that gets in the way of us really encountering Jesus is our own dysregulation, right? Like I, I think of this, it happens in A lot of the different healings that we see Jesus do, right? And, and I remember this because when, as I mentioned, I was pretty angry when I was younger and I was 18, 19, had just become a Christian and I went to Campus Crusade for Christ Bible study where it's, you know, 20 year olds leading 19 year olds type of thing. And at the end of one of Jesus's healings, he says, go and sin no more, so nothing worse happens to you. And my kind of youthfulness, anger, I said, that's a jerk thing to say. Like, why would Jesus say this to somebody who's been paralyzed their whole life? Like, what could be worse than that? And I got a lot of the answers of, well, Jesus is God. He's to say what he wants. And you know, he's all knowing and, you know, we got to trust that he's a good God. And none of those really sat well with me. And I think what I've realized over the years is, is this is an invitation that Jesus is giving, right? Is he saying, look, I've healed you physically. That's just the start, right? I'm actually inviting you into deeper relationship. So, so don't go and do the things that lead to you getting disconnected from me because that would be worse than your physical ailments that I'm offering you a depth of relationship that you can't totally understand yet. So it's an invitation. And that's what couples therapy is, is. It's an invitation to couples of. There's so much more available to you guys in this relationship. Let's partner together to help you experience that. Right? Because yeah, marriage is a powerful thing. It's a, it's a worthwhile thing that no matter how bad the divorce statistics get, you get a wedding invitation and you start shopping for a suit or a dress because we're excited to celebrate.

It's so powerful when you sit, I feel like, in the therapy room with a couple, and you have these like, moments where you just see the promise of that, which is, you know, and, but then they'll be total idiots with one another, you know, and you're like, oh my gosh, you guys have so much promise. Don't you see it? And I think that's like that thing for me with couples work that like both drives me insane and drives me to do good work. Because, yeah, I, I see this, like, this couple and like, if only they could see what, what it's about, right? And, and why they're together and, and what, what could happen that that. That chance of, like, becoming better, that chance of. Of change and to stop, like the generational elements of like, you know, my. My parents did this to me and they're repeating it. But then there's this hope with every generation that it could stop. And. Yeah, I love. I love that you stopped it for your generation. Even though your son might say, come on, but.

Come on, lady, come on.

But he's learning to self regulate in those places. I think that's. I think there's so much power. I think that's the power of couples work is like. It is like it does have this big effect beyond ourselves. Yeah, beyond the one. The one person. It's. It just. Just trickles. It's like the ripple effect of a stone to water. Right?

Yeah.

Do you have a favorite? Because before you hopped on, we talked about you. You have a lot. You love interventions. If you're not. If you're sitting, something's wrong. It sounds like in session. I'm wondering.

Yeah.

If you have a two or three that you're like, I love this intervention, or I'm working on this intervention right now.

Yeah. Let me think about how to kind of illustrate this. Rhett, do you have any room behind you? Like, could you take a few steps back if I asked you to? Just stay right there for now. I hope this doesn't get too quiet, but I'm going to stand up here and see if we can make this work. I'll kind of hunch over so you can still see me. But one of the interventions that I'll do with couples is I'll typically have them start kind of right in the middle of the room, and I'll have them stand toe to toe, just facing each other. Right. And then I'll have them kind of do a modified version of their four steps. And I'll have them say, lance has got our. Our dolls there out. And I'll have them say, in my pain, I feel. And so, Rhett, I'll have you do kind of your pain words with me. I'll start first and say, in my pain, I feel like I don't belong. And I'll take a step back.

Okay. And then I'll say it. And then when we step back, when I do this.

And then. Yeah, I want you to step back when I do this.

In my pain, I feel inadequate. Not enough.

And in my pain, I feel really unloved.

In my pain, I really feel alone.

And in my pain, I often feel unsafe.

So these guys are stepping back every time.

Yeah. In my Pain. I feel really inadequate.

Yeah. And so what tends to happen here. Right. Is now there's this huge distance between us. Right. And so what am I going to do to close that distance down? I'm going to raise my voice.

Because.

You'Ve gone away on me. Right. Or I'm going to keep withdrawing or I'm going to keep being critical. And this is how couples tend to try to solve their problems, is they create this huge distance between themselves because of their pain, and they wonder why they can't make progress. And so what I'll have them do is they'll be on opposite sides of the room in my office, and then I'll just have them read through their truths. And so let's kind of move through our truths together, Rhett. And we'll start moving one step at a time back towards each other. But the truth about me is, is that I'm not perfect, but I'm good enough.

The truth about me is that I know that I am enough.

Take a step forward. And the truth about me is that I know that I'm chosen.

The truth about me is I know that I'm more than adequate.

That's right.

And the truth about me is, is that I know I'm capable to do my part.

The truth about me is that I know that I'm loved and that you love me.

And now that we're back in the space where we're face to face with each other, what feels like the next right action for you to do? I don't give it to them. I don't tell them what to do. I let them kind of allow that moment of watching them move away and then moving back towards each other. And does this always work? Of course not. But when you have a couple who experiences the distance and then experiences walking and coming face to face with their partner, proclaiming their truths over their self, nine times out of ten, they're going to put their arms around each other and they're just going to start talking.

Yeah.

And I will just sit back and they will start sharing from a regulated place of, we're going to figure this out. Or, you know, I guess it's not that big of a deal that your brother is coming over to stay with us for the weekend. I'm sorry that I got that. I was feeling dysregulated. And you can kind of help them really experience. This is how you go away on each other. This is what it looks like to come back. And then you don't necessarily have to coach or guide Sometimes you do, but you're trusting in the model, you're trusting in the work, that when they take the time to share their truths in front of each other, to be vulnerable with each other in that moment, that they're naturally going to do the right thing. They're naturally going to take that next right step to deepen their relationship.

It's such a great empowerment exercise as well. Like to show them like, okay, this is what you're doing in your pain. This is what you can do in your truth. So I've always liked this intervention. I have this like super light coffee table in my room that I can just shove out of the way to get them, get them up. And then once your clients get used to you doing this with them, it's the same thing when you hand them their pain and peace cycle, it's like they're like, ah, we're doing it again. So then when they get into the chaos at home, they know exactly what's going to happen.

And. Lance, go ahead.

Oh, no. I was curious. Do you two here, brass tacks question. Do you two keep ready their pain and peace cycle and a file you just give them when they come into session? Do you ask them to bring it in? Do you just put it up on the, on the board? What do you like to do?

I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a whiteboard guy. Maybe not the most efficient. I mean, I'm still a paper file guy, so all my notes are in files. And I typically keep their pain in peace cycle right at the front of their file. So if I need to, I could hand it to them. But nine times out of 10, it's up on the board. Yeah. And, and so I can point right to it and they can reference it and be able to do those exercises with me. Ideally, they'd have it memorized, but, you know, I'm not naive.

Yeah. I have, I have the, I have a sheet of paper with their painting piece. I so like, the two big things I always have on my hand in session is at this cheat sheet that I've developed over years. And maybe sometime we'll talk about my, my cheat sheet for, for doing good clinical work. But then I always have their, a handy pain and peace cycle for them to look at that I'll just kind of have. Have on the ready or it like on the table in the beginning of session and just. Here we go. Here we go. Which I need to print off. I need to print off the classic one. I always just use like A little yellow sheet of paper which I always have to write out the four steps. 1 like so I'm always like, say what you feel, say what you normally do. Say the truth. Like I just need to have those ones, you know, they use that like the hideaway where it's all written up nicely. I need to do that one of these days, have those on hand.

It's good practice for me to just keep writing it out every time too.

Yeah, I like that. I like even before they maybe walk in the room, take you technical time writing up so when they walk in they see it and there it's a reference point. I'll send them home with the big sticky charts and ask them to hang it in their closet, you know, and hopefully they will have that memorized. But I think one of the areas I need to do more of is just getting it up on the board every session so you can see it visually.

And I take time.

It is, yeah.

And I take time to write it up in session with them as they're kind of coming in and sharing. And I think that kind of this is the thing, this is what we're going to do. We're not going to move in a different direction. There's not a different model. There's not. I've got something, you know, new and shiny for you. It's. We're going to come right back here and you don't have to work with me, but this is the work that I will do with you. And so yeah, I'd encourage everybody, always make sure that there's a visual of their pain and peace cycle in front of them. No matter how long you've worked with the client, always have it up in front of them. And I'll kind of just say one last thing, Lance, that you kind of mentioned that I think is been really encouraging and helpful for me. Interventions don't just have to be novel one offs meaning that it's not like, it's not like oh man, I did that intervention where I had them walk away and walk back. And it. I can never do it again because I spent that one. Do it again, do it again, do it twice in a session, do it over a number of weeks with them. That the experiential part doesn't always have to be. Let me wow my clients with how creative I am. Him. It's just the. How do I get you embodying your four steps, practicing your four steps, creating these kind of memories of. I remember that weird thing that our therapist made us do. Whether it was sculpting or, you know, walking away from each other or sculpting their partners. Sometimes I'll say, hey, you're gonna be the little wooden doll that we can kind of bend into place to illustrate your pain. Show your partner what you feel like in your pain, and then allow the partner to sit in that sculpted position and, you know, lots of different things you can do and you can keep going back to it, right? That I think sometimes because we have these super awesome interventions like re parenting or kind of the two screen split screen technique that it feels like, oh, I only get to do that once. No, you. You can go back to the well, and it's for the benefit of your clients.

I've been, I actually with. You know how that no card exercise that you got us going, Rhett. So I always have no cards in my office. So I'll, I will always, like, I've. I'll either do the no card intervention or the other thing I've been doing is I just. Just start writing their. Their pain words on a note card. I'll hand it to them, and I'll just keep on like, failure, okay. And then I'll write, and then, then they'll keep on telling a story. I'll write, oh, failure, okay? And I'll just hand it to them again. And. And I'm like, how long are you gonna hold on to those cards for? You know, you know, try trying to shift. Shift the, the dialogue so they can see what they're doing.

Yeah.

So, yeah, it's fun. Like, I mean, there's like, we have all these, like, little instruments in our room that we can just use at any point in time.

Yeah. A real quick one. As you were sharing, Lance, like, one of the things that I'll illustrate is I'll take the books off on my shelf and if somebody's sharing about their pain, right. So here's, you know, I feel unloved, I feel devalued, I feel unsafe. And I'll kind of have one partner hold all their pain, and then I'll go to the other partner and stack their arm up with. I feel out of control. I feel minimized, I feel unseen. And what we tend to see couples do, right, and this is the co regulation illustration, is I have this pain. Can I hand it over to you? And maybe if you're really strong, you can support your partner's pain for a while. But what tends to happen is we go, I can't hold this for you. I've got my own stuff right and what we're trying to do is to teach our couples to say, I feel unloved, but I know the truth is that I am deeply loved and to take the book and set it down. And I know that I feel unsafe, but the truth is, I know that I'm capable of doing some things, managing my part and to put that book down. And now your hands are free. And now that your hands are free, how can you engage with your partner? Right.

Yeah, we should get, we should get books with, like, titles on them that, like, are, like, devious. Like, you know, the worst person on earth, you know, like, and then. And be like, oh, looks like you're reading from this bookshelf over here.

Hey, sounds like a market for there. Lance, you better work on that.

It's like, you can't do the two screen technique. Like, by, like, which bookshelf, which bookshelf do you read from?

There you go. There you go.

Oh, man, looks like we're running up on time here.

We've been teasing, too. In a couple weeks, Tanner's gonna come on and just drop a bunch of interventions on us too, which.

That's the maestro, which will be awesome.

No, I, I, I mean, I've seen, I don't know. I mean, I've seen Lance work, too, and Terry and, and I haven't seen you work yet. I think Stephen in the room, but I hear about you, so I'm like, man, I'm working. I'm working with a bunch of maestros, which is awesome. Maestros and maestros.

Yeah, no doubt.

Yeah.

Well, we will have all this stuff up on the show notes and Stephen will definitely. We'll have to have you back on because I was like, I think there's so many things we could talk about that we didn't even get. We didn't get into today. Right. Which is, which is awesome. Any parting thoughts? Anything you want to say to the RT community out there?

Just, I'm really grateful for the two of you and your investment in taking the time to put this podcast together. And, yeah, I'll take a chance to kind of just plug our consultation group. We meet the third Thursday of every month from 12 to 2. That's Pacific time out here in California. We do meet via Zoom, so if you want just a chance to hear a little bit more about what people are doing with RT to get some case consultation on things that you're working on to see how people are doing different interventions, feel free to reach out and email me and we'll get you on the email list, man. That consultation group has been an absolute blessing to me and has grown me in so many ways. I get to sit with so many great minds and just see the vast and creative and diverse ways that people are doing restoration therapy. So if you want to be a part of that, we would love to have you third Thursday of every month, 12 to 2, California time.

That's right.

Gmail.com. i'll put that in the notes. That's correct. Right?

That's. That's the one.

Sweet.

All right, well, you have Spokane.

I can let that go. Are you.

I thought I'd give it one more rural, you know.

Awesome.

Let's do it.

Let's take the.

The podcast on a road trip. We'll hit up there. We go San Diego and Spokane and Dallas and Stephen will take us camping up in the national parks in Yosemite.

Let's do it.

RT in the wild. Cheers.

Yeah. Take care, man.

Awesome. Thanks, guys.