Season 1 | Episode 26 | Special Guest, RT Therapist Dr. Tanner Hargrove -- Intervention #1

Foreign.

What's going on? What's up, brother? Dude, I am so stoked today.

Yeah. But apparently we've been having some mic issues, so I just want everyone to know we are working on that.

We're not talking about Mike Bishop, although that episode was the bad one, but. Yes.

Yeah. So we've gotten some feedback. We are aware. We are working on that behind the scenes. In any episodes where there's kind of some issues, we're gonna just republish, hopefully a little cleaner version of it. So thanks for your patience.

Yes, we'll still have the explicit tag on Spotify, though. For some reason, we have to put that. Because we talk about serious issues on this episode.

Well, yeah, when this. Our guest coming up talks about marital interventions, there might be some stuff that, you know, not for tiny ears on occasion.

That's right. That's why we have the explicit piece there. For all of you that are wondering. It's not that we're dropping F bombs that.

Yeah. Spotify requires you. If you talk about issues around trauma, abuse, anything that may trigger an A listener, you have to put that tag on. So that's the reason. Lance, dude, know our guest really well, but I'll let you introduce them.

Wait, I thought you would. But, I mean, as we're here, I just want to talk about this amazing man who is often. He has a quite fortunate slash unfortunate last name, which this guy. I got to meet him back at Fuller Theological seminary back in 2000 and 2011.

He was 11. Yeah. I want to say. Yeah.

Yeah. Instant magic with this guy. Instant legend status. We have Tanner Hargrove. Dr. Tanner Hargrove on today, and he actually has. He runs the Amarillo Family Counseling Institute in Emirates, where Terry. The one that Terry started. So come on, people. We got. We got. And then also he is the clinical director at the Hideaway. The hideaway getaway thing. Hideaway experience. It's like Hideout Canyon. And. Yeah, but. And then last but not least, actually, there's more things we could add on. He's, you know, husband of Jet, who we love. If you don't know Jet, you are missing out on life. That. That woman is absolutely amazing. But also professor. So we're super stoked to have Tanner. We saw Tanner at the summit do this amazing, like, go through of a ton of interventions with RT that were super creative. So we're super stoked to have them here today. Rhett, what's up with you, bro?

I. I met Tanner 2010, when he was. I don't think he was engaged yet. He was dating. And so I remember talking to Steve, who his father in law. And I think, you know, they're wondering is this, who is this Tanner guy going to be around for the long run? What's going on here?

So be careful.

We talk about Steve.

Yeah.

So I, I remember Tanner back in the pre engagement days. So it's been a fun journey. You know, he, I would see him on every once in a while, come up to the hideaway and hop on that piano and just play some amazing music. So anyways, Tanner, welcome to our long rambling intro podcast here.

I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, well, we're gonna do. So Lance, you referenced at the summit, Tanner did interventions, marital interventions essentially. And the room was packed out.

Yeah, packed room. The, the name of the, the, the module, the thing that we were doing, the class, whatever it is, workshop was supposed to be intensive therapy. And the thing that was happening was very intense, I'll tell you that much. And so. But yeah, that it was a great. I mean this guy's amazing. So. And if you're. What. So this is one I would recommend if you can watch it. However, I feel like Tanner can come across. We'll do our best to narrate things that are going on with, with Tanner as he's showing these interventions and our hope is to split this episode up into multiple episodes for those of you that were like, oh hey, what was that one? Intervention. So you can find that intervention and we'll probably try and tag it with, you know, if it's. If this is a good pain cycle intervention, peace cycle intervention, usness intervention, change your life intervention. We'll hit them all. So. But Tanner, welcome.

Thanks so much. I'm very excited to be here. It was cool that you guys asked and were so impacted by the things that I think this happens with a lot of us that we do stuff on a pretty consistent regular basis and we don't even realize that kind of what we're doing can be pretty impactful. So a lot of the stuff that I'm sharing with you today is very loose. And what I mean by that is like almost everything that I'm going to share with you today was created on the fly. So I would bump up against an issue with a couple or with a particular client and realize, right. Like we've all seen it in their eyes or their experience where it's just not clicking or it's just not dropping into their full overall understanding. And so I've started to really lean into this Idea of creativity, metaphor and novelty. When we think about interventions, I think one of the things that we tend to get away from is that they have to be really complex or big or grand. And I think in order to be creative, novel and use metaphor, these things can be really simple and very quick. And oftentimes you don't even really need to buy a ton of supplies. So you're going to see me use some stuff throughout these interventions that are really low hanging fruit, they're really easy to grab. You probably even have some of them already in your offices, which is always a good thing for me. Or if they are things that you can purchase, they're very inexpensive and easy to grab in bulk so that you can have lots of them to keep using as you kind of move forward. But as I put some of this stuff together, I really tend to lean into. I want my clients to have an experience while they're in the midst of the therapeutic process that allows them to be able to kind of embody and understand things at a deeper level. Right. So my work as a professor is oftentimes to make really kind of complex things understandable to a really diverse wide range of students. And so I think that sometimes is the same experience that we need to have with our clients is we need to take some of these ideas that are kind of complex but also very impactful and figure out how to let them land with clients and couple experiences. And so as I go through some of this stuff, I heard somebody say one time, every good teacher borrows and then every student becomes a borrower. And so I really want to make sure that everybody understands. Take this, use it, throw it in the garbage, adjust it, tweak it, whatever you need to do to make it fit. Because there are lots of variability with these things. So what I'm going to share with you is not exhaustive. It is not the end all, be all. There is no script that's going to come with some of this stuff. So I'm going to talk through them today with you guys. And it's probably going to be different than when I shared it back in February. But as we go through these things, my hope is that some people are able to kind of take what we talk through and be able to make it their own and use it with their own clientele or populations or even in their own lives on some levels to be able to help people really get stuff to click across the board. The first intervention that I'm going to talk about is this idea that I think we see Pretty consistently when we're looking at either couples sessions or conjoint sessions is the idea of destructive entitlement. It's something that we talk about a lot with people. It's something that I think can kind of rear its head more often than we realize. And sometimes one of the things that will happen is you'll hear clients start talking about things like, well, they'll use a lot of fairness language. So they'll say things like, well, it's just not fair that I consistently load the dishwasher, but she doesn't help me mow the yard. Or it's just not fair that I show up on a consistent basis and I'm not getting enough sex. Or it's just not fair, or I don't understand why my partner isn't able to give me everything that I'm expecting from them. And so usually that those are the indicators for me, like, we're probably hitting around destructive entitlement. There's probably something that's happened in the past that is contributing to what's got this expectation off on some levels. So one of the things that I do is I keep this Mason jar in my office. It's got Expo markers, but I usually have Sharpies in. I took the Sharpies out, so I didn't accidentally ride on my whiteboard with a Sharpie. I take this giant Expo or this giant mason jar, and I put these markers in it. And one of the things that I'll do is I'll empty all the markers out, and then I'll take.

Which is like a blank. This is like an empty glass. For those of you that don't know what a Mason jar is, it's like a Texan.

Yeah. Okay. This empty glass, it could be anything. I guess people don't know what a Mason jar is, but. So I take this empty mason jar, and to the partner, to the spouse, that is kind of saying some of the things that would be an indicator to me that he or she might be struggling with some destructive entitlement. And I give him a blank whiteboard. So this is just a small whiteboard. I can pick it up. I move around my office all the time. And then I give him the empty Mason jar, and I'll look at the spouse and I'll say, hey, real quickly, before we move on, and I want to make sure that we talk about what you're dealing with here. But before we do that, I want you to. On this whiteboard, I want you to depict for me your ideal marriage. And then I say, but you can only use the resources that are in the mason jar. Then I just kind of sit there and wait.

Tanner, you said that the mason jar doesn't have any.

Correct. The mason jar is empty. Which is intentional. Because part of what I'm hoping for them to be able to understand is that they feel the pressure of the expectation in the marriage, whether that's deeper intimacy, deeper emotional connection, communication, whatever it might be. And so they feel the pressure of the assignment.

Right.

Like I want you to show me, depict for me what you want your marriage to look like. But I also like to highlight the fact that sometimes it feels like they're pulling from an empty mason jar. Then I take the other markers and I give them to the other spouse. So if I'm working with the husband, I give the markers to the wife. If I'm working with the wife. So whoever doesn't have the mason jar is who I give the markers to.

The non entitled.

The non entitled person or the person that isn't actually kind of expressing some of those things. And then as I'm working with the guy that's holding the mason jar, I have him look at his wife and I say, look at what she's got. And he says, great. And then I say, what do you think you need? And then he's going to say, I think I need some of her markers. And I'll say, great, so what are you going to do? And he'll reach over and usually he'll grab a marker and I'll say, great, that works. But how do you think it impacts her?

Right.

And so then we start talking about how there's this literal, like withdrawal in deposit interaction that's taking place between the two of them. And then I start talking to him about what happens if you take all of her markers. So then I take all the markers out of her hand and I put it in his hand.

Right.

Or I might even drop them in the jar. Sorry, this is kind of hard to see. But I might even drop them in his jar. And so then he looks at his wife and he's like, well, now she doesn't have any. And I'm like, exactly. So how is she supposed to help you contribute to what you're trying to depict as far as your overall ideal marriage or relationship that you're wanting to get. Right. And so then we kind of talk through, like, what's complicated about this? Why does this not work? What issues does this possibly set up? How does this connect to some of the other ideas that he's maybe expressed or that she's maybe expressed before. And we start talking about how essentially what ends up happening is when you have an expectation in front of you but your jar is empty, you start getting a sense of entitlement. And then I really drill home for him. Where do you think your resource is supposed to come from? He's probably going to say, or she is probably going to say, my spouse.

Co regulation her needs, baby, she's got what I need.

It's exactly right. And then I'm going to say something along the lines, well, how's that working? And he's probably going to say, well, she gets ticked off or she gets irritated or it doesn't go well or sometimes she starts getting catty or then she expects things from me and I'll say exactly. So let's have a conversation about where else you could get your resources.

Right?

And this is where I'm going to start to bridge the gap and help him to understand. Like part of what we're looking for here is we want your truth to become the resources that you draw from. So whether you get your truth from God, whether that's from these trusted people in your life, whether that's your own sense of self, that's where I'm really going to hit the peace cycle for him and I'm real. Or I'm really going to talk about, listen, your truth is not dependent. Your set of resources is not dependent on what your wife can give you. And then if I've already started this conversation on some levels, it can also be really helpful to use this example to talk about intergenerational deficit.

Right?

So if we're talking about, I'll use the example at times as a parent, my job is to. And then I'll literally start dropping in, give my kids love and give my kids safety and give my kids security and help them know that they're worthy and give them all of the things that they need to feel empowered and make sure that they know that they're accepted no matter what. Because then what I'm doing is I'm filling up my kids jar. And so that when they go into their own intimate relationships, they've got a resource center to depict what they want to be able to depict. And then I'll talk with the husband or the wife, I'll say, hey, listen, you got some deficit. So you might not have gotten some of these things from who you were supposed to get them from. And so now you start looking to your spouse who is not supposed to fill your cup Your cup is supposed to be filled by you individually. This is where the idea of individual emotional regulation. We're not going to be codependent, we're not going to co regulate. But now imagine that if you had some markers and your spouse has some markers, then what we can do is we can exchange these. So then I could say, hey, I've got a green. Can I borrow your red? And then there can be a mutually interdependent relationship that starts to function when we're both living in that place of peace and acting out of that place of peace rather than out of a place of being deficit. And really trying to emphasize, really what you're trying to emphasize is two things. Number one is the fact that the struggle he feels is real or that she feels is real. Yes, you have an expectation. You feel the push to create a deeper, intimate connection, increase your communication, be more connected across the board. That's a real issue. But the catch is if you keep pulling from your spouse, it's only going to set up further destruction. So we've got to make a decision about where you get your resources. Because if you keep pulling from your spouse, she or he is not going to be able to sustain these things. This also lends itself really well the self care conversations.

Right?

So you can talk about your cup being filled. What are you doing resources in, especially if you've already had that conversation with the clients, it's a really good place to kind of bring that in, to be able to say, yeah, well I just work all the time and there's no way for me to live in my truth. That much. Then we kind of hit on, yeah, but how are you taking care of yourself? Are you filling your own cup? Is there, are there active self care practices and wellness in your life? And so we can kind of integrate some of those things as well within the same intervention.

Rhett, we just heard like three different options like to talk through with this case. We got what we got. We have, number one is the instructive entitlement. Like hey, you're, you're asking, you're drawing from a empty well right now, you know, and then we got co regulation versus self regulation. So good.

And then we got intergenerational.

Oh wait, but there's more self care, baby, you gotta learn to take care of yourself, man. And your wife or your spouse ain't the answer all the time.

Right? Yeah.

I don't know why I went snarky there at the end. I feel like it's just, I think it's Your fault, Tanner.

So I feel like that's fine. Yeah, go ahead.

Just set up for a second. Just the beginning, like, one minute of that intervention.

Okay?

You got the portable whiteboard with you. You got this mason jar, the glass jar with markers in it that you will empty out in the beginning of this intervention. Right. And your beginning prompt is like, what's. I know people can make this their own, but for you, what's kind of the on ramp into it then for, like, the first minute? How do you set up?

So one of the things that usually what I'm looking for, those indicators. So I'm looking. When I start to get that therapeutic check that I've got some destructive entitlement, I'll literally just stop them and say, wait a second. I got to get some stuff. I need to explain something real quick. I want you guys to understand what's maybe up underneath this dynamic of fairness or injustice that's playing out between the two of you, because I don't think it's really what you're talking about. So then I'll grab the whiteboard, and I'll just dump the markers out, and I'll give the markers to the spouse that isn't, I think, struggling with the destructive entitlement, and I give the empty jar to the spouse who I think is. And then I just say, before we move on, I want you to depict on the whiteboard your ideal marriage. Or you could even bring it in and say, like, if they were talking about, you know, feeling more connected, you could say, draw for me what it looks like. If you guys were to be ideally connected, you really want to hit on, like, ideal or the ultimate or your idea of what it really looks like to be in the place that you want to be. Because what you want to emphasize is the. The desire to get where he wants to get or she wants to get is good.

Right?

The catch is, the way they're getting there is through that destructive. They're trying to pull from some things that's causing the destruction out of that sense of emptiness or entitlement, you just kind of roll from there. And then he'll say, well, I can't. There's no. Or she'll say, I can't. There's no markers in my jar. And you'll say, correct. So what options do you have? And then she'll say. Or he'll say, well, I don't know. I don't. I guess I could find some markers. Great. Well, do you see any marker? Like, you just kind of walk them through some of the logical stuff. And they could even say, right. Because they might look at their spouse and say, hey, can I have a blue? And then you're gonna. You're gonna kind of be like, I don't. I don't really think that's. I don't think you ask. I think you just take.

Right.

You're going to push on them a little bit because you want to get it as close to their actual, like, conflictual pattern or their pain cycle as you can. Or they might do anything. I'll just hold my jar and be mad about it. Yeah, you probably are. And you're exactly what's. That's also destructive entitlement.

Right.

So no matter where they go with it, you really want to hit on. Yeah. And that is destructive. That is not helpful. Right.

And I love how simple it is. Like, yeah, I keep this in my drawer for. I mean, I use it to write pain and peace cycles on the chart. Sometimes when couples come overwhelmed with all their issues, I'll just, like, dump all this on the floor, scattered. And they're, like, anxious. And we slowly, one by one, pick up pieces to identify what we want to focus on in session today. And I. I just say, like, we all have props around our office. And, you know, you said interventions are about creativity, metaphor, novelty. So just. It sounds like it's important just to be creative. Look around your office and just do it. Do whatever you need to do with whatever prop you have, and then it kind of develops from there. Because I would imagine the first time you did this, I mean, do you remember the first time you did this? Were you just sitting there and, like, I see this, Mason.

Well, the first time I did it was at an intensive, and it usually comes out right at about day three at our intensives. And day three, there's five.

It's time to get real.

They have this huge glass jar. And I was like, this. This couple is not getting it. And like, most intensives or group therapy, there are multiple. There were a couple other couples that I was like, I really think a lot of people need to hear this. And so I just kind of, like, went with it.

Right.

Like Terry always says, like, if you don't know what to do, just stand up.

Right.

And so I was just like, let's see what happens. And so I just kind of started going towards that idea, and it's just kind of taken shape since then.

Nice.

I love it.

If, If. If people. Hopefully they're watching the video, but I think it's good to watch the video just for the faces that Lance makes alone during a podcast episode.

Yeah, I have.

All right, Lance, any. We'll close that intervention out unless you have any questions and move on to the next intervention. Any questions, thoughts?

No, I just want to encourage people to try it out. It's a good one.

Love it.