Season 1 | Episode 35 | Special Guest, RT Founders Terry and Sharon Hargrave

Lance, what's going on this morning?

Rat. Rat. Rat. Rat. Rat. It's good to see you, my friend.

This is episode 35. Can you believe it, dude?

35 and we're still alive. 35 and we strive. 35.

Well, all right. We're not going to waste time with you and I bantering. I'm going to let you go ahead and introduce our guests there this morning.

Okay. This is so silly to introduce these people, but I will just because I love them. Guys, today we are, we are so blessed and privileged to have both Terry and Sharon Hargrave. These two have, you know, made an indelible mark upon me, upon our whole community. And today I, I asked them to come on today because there's some stuff I really want to talk about today. And so this is a. I literally talked to Terry yesterday, and he was very kind to come on. And then we got Sharon as well. So I'm sorry, I didn't mean to Oprah on that one, but, but I'm very excited to have Terry and Sharon Hargrave here today.

Thanks for asking us.

We're pleased to be here.

Yeah, Lance, so go ahead and set us up for what you've been kind of processing recently and why you wanted to have a conversation with the Hargrave specifically.

Yeah, so about, I want to say. Oh, gosh, I don't know if it was during COVID or when it was. We had this meeting with Terry and Sharon and a whole bunch of people in Pasadena is like, called Therapy in the Stars and in our RT connects the stars, dream the stars. It was awesome. We, like, looked at, we went to this huge telescope and all this other stuff and got to see Saturn was amazing. But one of the things that really touched me was this view on kind of how dysregulation, when we get so dysregulated that it leads to polarization and then it gets to this extremism stuff. And I, I wanted Terry to come to kind of share about this part of, like, how to understand what's going on in culture from a, the, from a therapeutic perspective. When we were looking at restoration therapy, because I think restoration therapy touches all these zones and, and then we also have Sharon, who's going to help us to navigate. What does the therapist do in the therapy room when you have these, like, it feels like you're ping ponging, like, what? I, I, I thought you were just, I, I was just in a session where, you know, this political figure is the worst person on earth. Now I'm in the Therapy session where we love this person, but we hate this other person. And what am I supposed to do right now as a therapist bouncing off the walls and, you know, trying to touch the soul, but also trying to take care of ourselves. So we. We have the. Just such a gift having Terry and Sharon here today.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I mean, how about we just take it away? Terry, would you mind talking through? You know, y' all can talk initially, whatever. Whatever you want to do, because I just love to hear your voices. And supposedly they're going to add some bass to my voice today. I'm so excited. I'm sure Ro just heard that. And he's probably going to do extra bass right now. So here we go. We have Terry and Sharon live.

Sorry. Thanks, guys. We. We always appreciate you two and the. The service that you're doing for the RT community. It's very important that you keep people connected. I just taught Level one training yet let's. This last weekend and there were several people that were listening to the podcast already and well into becoming excited about being Lance and Rhett groupies. So, yeah, one of the.

Do you have to go in, Terry, and unteach them everything that they heard in the podcast in Level 1?

No, no, no, no.

All right. We're working on it.

What are the things that, particularly in a time such as ours, therapists have to realize that pain cycle stuff Is pain cycle stuff? Is pain cycle stuff. The kind of. See that you. The kind of thing and kind of emotional dysregulation that you see going in politically in our communities, in our churches, in our daily life with families. This is all due to emotional dysregulation. Remember some of the basics that are important to relate to. There are only two ways that human beings get emotionally dysregulated. They get dysregulated around their identity or sense of safety. A third option would be they have both of those things going on at one time. The milieu of what we're doing right now, what you see on more of a global scale, but particularly on a national scale, is this kind of emotional dysregulation that leads to more and more tragic events. So this would be the idea is that. So when we track things back, it relates to everybody's individual pain cycle, their identity and sense of safety, or both of those things get dysregulated and they act out. And we know that in that reactive state, they do regularized things. So they go to blame, shame, control, escape. These are tried and true expressions of reactivity in the human nature. And they're not. They're not 20 of them. You know, I'm always tickled about the idea of people turning fight and flight to fight. Flight, Flight, fawn, flop, freeze, you know, just more and more. No, there's two. There's. There's two primary reactions because that is the way that the brain works, particularly that part of the brain. It's an on, off, switch. It's a yes, no, black, white. It's either this or that. And in human's case, it is fight or flight. That's it. All those other Fs that they add to that framework are actually a prefrontal cortex involvement. They may be some kind of characteristic type thing, but they're not automatic responses. So emotional dysregulation leads to that kind of reactivity. But we started asking ourselves about four years ago. Lance was right. About four years ago, we started asking ourselves, what happens when people refuse to get out of their pain cycle, in other words? And I just, I just want to show this, this diagram up here. Can you see that? Okay.

Yeah, you can see that.

So if you're moving on the show

notes too, if you're. Upload that to the show notes, Terry, as well, if that's okay with you. Okay.

If you move from left to right, you can see that what goes on is that you're in a reactive state. If you stay there long enough, you will become what we call polarized. That. That polarized state begins to talking you into, oh, I am so used to my own emotional dysregulation, I'm going to take it one step further. Those other people are wrong. They're the cause of my dysregulation and cause of what the problems are in the universe. Everything the left says if I'm on the right is. They're just flat wrong. They shouldn't be able to do that. And we in fact start justifying our blame, shame, control, and escape. I'm right to confront them. I am. I'm right to be unkind to them. I am right to. Or. Or a shaming reaction. It is hopeless. Those people are. Are in like Flynn, man. They are going to keep on going forever. Controlling like, oh, God, you know, I got to get organized. I got to get. You know, we have to fight this on every level or escape where I just go click. I'll just turn that off and drink or drug or whatever it is, that polarization becomes damaging. But here's the deal, and this is what's most important, is that if we stay Long enough in that polarized state. Remember, it starts with dysregulation. So I am dysregulated, but now I'm polarized. If I stay polarized, if I refuse to regulate myself, I will become entitled. And that entitlement becomes extraordinarily dangerous at that point. Because what I feel is, is that these people on the other side are the enemy, and we are right to get them out of the way. We're right by assassinating their character. We're right by thinking about it 24, 7. We are right even taking it to an extreme, and in our day of time, of actually denying them of their rights.

And.

And the most extreme way is that we'll kill them and we feel justified in killing them. So statements like love your enemies or pray for your enemies or something like that, turning that around to I hate my opponents as the kind of vitriol that gets stirred up among people to the point where they just copy one another. And the further, as you can see in this extremism, the further one side goes to the left, the further the right goes to the right, and vice versa. And they begin to think of their emotional dysregulation as actually being normal or that's. That's the way that's. I become very defensive of it. So, you know, and I'll give this one to you also, but this is

just

a framework of. What I've just explained is that this occurs both on the left and the right. It moves people in. You know, whether you're in your family, whether you're in your local church or school, whether you're talking about your community or what you're talking about our nation or worldwide. And let me tell you, Sharon and I lived through. We were teenagers during the most reactive time in our country's history of the 20th century. That was 1968. I guarantee you the Vietnam War was going on. There were a lot of overtures and fights about what we were doing in terms of policing the area. We couldn't trust our government any longer. It was a time there were assassinations, one generation challenging the other. We can tell you, hands down, this is five times worse. Where we find ourselves today is five times worse than the worst time that we had ever experienced in terms of polarization. So this is not any little deal, and it affects us personally. But what we thought would be helpful, and particularly Sharon was chatting with Clint Davis a few days ago. And what we thought would be helpful is talking about what is our therapeutic response, because our pain cycles get activated in this also, we tend to go to one extreme or another. We become way over involved in our own dysregulation or we tend to get uninvolved and staying quiet out of our own dysregulation. So yeah, questions about that or.

I just want to say, I just want to add to this. All this started because this thought, you know, as I would drive back and forth to Pepperdine, my long commute and listen to the news, I think how do people get to the place that they feel justified killing another person?

Yeah.

And that's where we started having these conversations about how does that process happen? Because everybody that kills somebody is not emotionally deranged. You know, there are people that purposely plan and work this out and feel totally justified to bomb a place to shoot somebody. So that's where kind of the, the conversation started is how are people getting to these places?

Yeah, I mean I think just this mentality of prolonged pain cycle experience in and around certain like pieces and the way it just kind of slowly like gets us into these prisons.

Right.

You know, we first it's, you know, us versus them mentality and then it depreciates to us versus it where we don't even see the others as humans is.

I mean, and the, the thing that we as therapists, we recognize this, right? Because we see families that do this to one another, they get into an extreme and title position. So saying I'm not letting, if we're adults, I'm not letting my family go back to my parents house because that's just crazy. They're just nuts. And I feel totally entitled to that position. You see this in marriages all the time where people spent their lives being emotionally dysregulated and it's like sleeping with the enemy. You know, they are so dysregulated they believe their spouse is the enemy.

It's, it like breaks the heart.

Yeah, I don't have a question really. The other thing I just been thinking a lot about the last week was the role of technology, specifically social media, in fueling one's emotional dysregulation. And you know, having my own experience where if I'm face to face with a person, we get along great and um, you know, we're two human people doing life together. But if you see their stuff online, you're like, I don't even know this person. And just how easy a vehicle that is to fuel one's own dysregulation, you know, and my own concern with just thinking about the boundaries we set and not Being online in certain ways or engaging in certain stuff and so hard to do. I know, but I. Again, not a question, but I don't know if that is something that as therapists, we need to think through, you know, because I've encouraged clients just to get off things, even just to take a pause for a couple of weeks and go out and just do life face to face with people, to shift their perspectives.

Yeah. And Rhett, that's where I think when we do that, though, we don't want to say, you can't talk to people about this stuff. I think that's where the church has gotten in trouble. And that's why, as we were talking before this, a lot of churches really weren't prepared this last Sunday for people coming to church with such strong feelings one way or the other about Charlie Kirk. Because in our churches, we've basically said, we don't talk about that here, meaning politics. And I think that's gotten us into a place of saying, okay, we. If we want to get along with other people, we just don't talk about these things. And that's where I just feel really strongly that all. I'm not saying church should be political. Please don't hear me say that. I'm just saying there should be no topic at church that we can't engage with another human being about and have a calm, connecting conversation about. And so I think our church is. Now, I was telling the guys before this group, Terry and I've been in a small group here in Sedona, and over the last year and a half, we've gone from a position of we don't talk about stressful politics here to why don't we talk about stressful things we disagree on here, too, man. We got to start talking to each other about this stuff in a calm, connected, engaging way. Because if we. If we just cut ourselves off and don't think about it or talk about it, actually, that's in a way, a dysregulation. So I, I, and I agree with you that the social media makes me believe that my friends or people that I don't necessarily agree with are just thinking awful things. Well, that's not true.

Well, I found it helpful to not engage online and that stuff and to sit down over a cup of coffee with my friend, for example, this week, and just have a conversation about it where we can. There's. There's nuance. We can care for each other. It feels like that very much I thou relationship. There's a level of respect and just Moving in those directions, but not avoiding it, but trying to move it offline. And I think and thinking about the space that I inhabit and what I have control and what I don't have control of, and to be focused on those in people around me. Like I was telling my daughter, who's off at college, you know, and it's college campus, so you can get caught up in a lot of stuff. And I just encourage her. I'm like, look around you at the people in your dorm and the people you go to lunch with and the people you do life with. And. And, you know, do your best to care about those people and have conversations with them. And there's a lot of things that are out of your control at the moment, and maybe someday you may have to engage at a different level. You'll be required to do that. But right now, like, you know, just focusing on those people within our sphere and loving them and doing the work has been really important, I think, for me recently. And trying to encourage, you know, my own daughter in that.

Yeah, it's one of the things I think is important that we. We get ourselves settled for, though, is that when we see somebody in extreme, an extremely entitled position. Remember, one of the reactivities of humans is to flight. And so what we do most of the time is, particularly in therapy. Here's the therapeutic framework is that when people come in emotionally dysregulated about that, instead of taking on their emotional dysregulation through the four steps. So let's talk about this. What is it that you feel? What is it that you do when you feel that way? What's the truth that you want to say about your identity and sense of safety to get them grounded basically, in a place where they can calm themselves so good stuff starts coming out of it. And again, what happens mostly, particularly in the therapy room, is we get in our pain cycle, is saying, whoa, man, this client's really going off in a loop, or something like that. And we get in our pain cycle and we. And the most common thing we do, we either say, I feel so inadequate as a therapist to be able to handle this, or we just say, I'm not commenting on that. You know, I'm not going to chase that pain. I'm. You know, I don't have a. I don't have a dog in this fight, so I'm just going to lay low. Those are mistakes. Those are. Those are therapeutic mistakes in that we need to chase our own emotional dysregulation first. But then we also need to be able to, whatever the subject is, chase emotional dysregulation, because that's the enemy. That's where. That's where people eventually escalate to the next level. So, you know, if you think your client is ranting and raving now, wait till they get into a position of extreme entitlement and start taking actions that

are

not only hateful, but really undermining the girding of human beings and your organization or your practice or something of that nature, it becomes lethal at that

point, I think, Lance, to one of your comments earlier. This is. And shout out to Clint for our great conversation that we had that he said that's what he'd been doing all week long last week was people come in dysregulated on both sides, you know.

Oh, yeah.

And he just walk them through the four steps. And he said, he said by the end of the session, people would get to the place that you say, okay, what are you going to do differently? You know, and they would state positive connection, peace, cycle, things that they were going to do differently. And I think for the therapist, for the care of the therapist, that helps the therapist so much be able to say, I don't have to bang back and forth from one side to another. I just have to hone into the pain cycle and say, okay, my job here is to help all these people get regulated. I'm contributing to their church, I'm contributing to their family. I'm contributing to their community by helping them see they don't have to act in destructive coping ways.

Yeah.

When they hear this, these topics. So, you know, Clint, like you guys were seeing, and a lot of the therapists listening, you were seeing, you know, multiple people in a mo in many, many different emotional realms. And I just thought that was really powerful to use that as, as an example to say, okay, let's go there instead of saying, okay, well, let's work on your marriage, whatever you're there for.

And we don't have to go on a crusade to be able to do that, because like our clients, they come to us like your daughter on a college campus. Instead of looking out to the crowd, look to the individuals that. That come to me that I have, that I rub elbows with. Those are the people that are in my sphere of influence. Those are the people that one, number one, I need to be regulated with. Number two, those are the people that I need to share my emotional regulation with to help get them emotionally regulated. That that's the most powerful thing that I think that we can do in this culture. And we're there, gang, is we're there at entitled extremism.

I. Yeah, one of the things I wanted to kind of lean on, and this is one of the things that, like, really, it was a game changer for me in this conversation with the two of you, and I'd love to kind of hear where you guys have gone, but I think kind of almost having that recognition of, like, recognizing how far down the road has this person gone.

Right.

First off is like, kind of like, are we in a polarization place? Are we in extremism place? You know, are we just reactive? Right. To be able to kind of tap into where this is. And once you know where they are, from a, like, mental perspective, to know, here are the good questions to help someone that is in a total extreme place or in a. That's polarized or that's reactive. I think you guys offered some of those questions, and I think I'd love for y' all to kind of maybe lean into that a little bit as well, because I. I had some people that I would struggle having any conversation with at all. But then you're like, just tap into what their pain is there or remind them that they're human. Like that. These. These things that, like, oh, yeah, I can just do that. So would y' all mind tap, like, sharing about that?

I. I just. First, I just want to say for us, we had to tap into it ourselves.

Yeah, that's the first rule.

We, five or six years ago, talked in polarized terminology a lot. Them, they, him, you know, party, party, whatever. Dodgers, Padres, Padres, whatever, you know, and we had to. We had to come to the point to say, we have got to stop talking in polarized language. I don't think we ever got entitled.

No.

But I do think we got polarized. So I think, yeah, we're gonna say something. I mean, I think first acknowledging how.

How far we are down there, how.

What's the word I want. Not minuscule, but how it can be living in your own heart and you don't even. You're not even aware of it.

Yeah, I don't know what words you're searching for either, but it. The. The presence of your own emotional dysregulation. If you don't spot it, you will turn to the coping mechanisms, which. Nothing. Let me. Let me just remind everybody, nothing good comes out of your coping mechanisms. Blame, shame, control, and escape. Nothing good, nothing loving, nothing trustworthy comes out of those things. So I. You know, for instance, when somebody says, I, I hate you know, this, that, this person, that person, whatever, whatever it is saying, you know, just starting on the cycle. So what, you use this word hate. What do you do when you feel hate towards somebody? And when, when you do those types of things, how do people react to you? And then get down to the, the number one thing. And so, and so when they do those types of things, what do you feel about yourself? What do you feel about the relationship? You're going to run into this, this sense of I'm impervious to it, or I'm entitled to it, or I'm, I'm saddened by it. I'm, I'm, I feel terrible about myself or I, I, I feel the need for more power. I mean, you're going to run into these painful words that really dictate a lack of identity and a lack of safety to the point where it becomes more evident. But the primary thing is, is that you have to hear that without getting emotionally dysregulated out of yourself, where you can't ask the questions because our natural ability is either going to be attack somebody, feel bad about it ourselves, or we're going to try to control and organize the other side, or we're just going to go away and be hopeless about it by numbing ourselves. So, yeah, I think we have to be strategic in saying I got to deal with myself first and get myself in a position to ask that next strike question. When somebody is doing something destructive or what's driving that, or when you're, they say something that is reflective of what's in their heart, saying, what do you normally do when you feel that? What do you normally do when you're saying what you're saying? And that list gets pretty destructive pretty fast. Yeah.

Were there some questions last that you were thinking about?

I, I think one of the things that I noticed is, you know, when people get on the rant or like, when, like the rant starts going, one of the things that you really encouraged was to slow them down. Like, and this is, this is in a. I think it works in both realms, but I found so much movement to say, tell me what's the pain going on there for you? It sounds like there's something really deeper going on as you talk about this rant, because they're like, just repeat, you know, And I do it too, to be fair, repeating the sound bite that they just heard. Right. And I found that and I started asking people that question. Help me to understand the pain that's going on inside of you as you talk about this, you know, when you're concerned about insert, you know, immigration, when you're concerned about gun control. Like, when you're concerned, what's the pain that's going on inside of you? Help me to get to the heart of it instead of, you know, going, you know, back and forth with a person or, like, avoiding, you know, just. Just slowing it down. And I think that what you're saying, that's. That's why I'm regulated. Right. When I'm loving a person, and when I'm loving, I want to seek understanding of that. That person's soul, not necessarily the sound bite that they just heard.

Yeah.

You bring up another thought that I hadn't mentioned. But this whole idea of safety for people right now, some people literally are, you know, not safe. I mean, to protect. The source therapist told me this last week about somebody in their church or in. Or one of their clients had gone to a Bible study and asked to pray for people in her home country. And her home country was a controversial home country, and she was asked to leave the Bible study untold. She was disruptive. So there are situations where people are losing their foundation of things that they stand on, that they're really something to be afraid of. So I also wondered if it'd be a good idea to kind of walk back through those ideas of, you know, when we say to people when. When they're feeling. On their pain cycle is unsafe. You know, we've talked a lot about how you can't just put the word safe on their peace cycle because that's not going to speak to people like me who've been through trauma.

Yeah.

I did not keep me away from that trauma. So I don't know if y' all talked about that on the podcast recently, but the other ways we can help people regulate that. Feel unsafe.

Yeah. Sharon, you actually. I was just. You literally took the words from my mouth. I was thinking about, you know, you had this idea of, like, of course, Carl Rogers, this unconditional positive regard for people to, you know, to. In. In the room. And. And I. I have to admit there's times where I just. I want people to feel safe. So I don't. I don't say anything. I don't challenge maybe some of their views on things. But what has become more clear to me recently is that there are some views that people will say that aren't just views, but they're literally challenged people in the community's sense of safety, like, at a physical level. And so then I. I wrestle with My role as a therapist of how, like even to navigate that, if that makes sense, because, you know, I'm in a privileged position, I have to say, like, I. My sense of. I don't feel that sense of lack of safety at the moment, you know, but not everybody is in that position. And so how do I. Yeah, how do I address that when there is a real lax sense of safety? I'll stop rambling. But you were like, I was thinking about that.

Well, the three, the three things that Terry's kind of outline, maybe it'd be better for you to talk about them. But when we talk about safety, as Terry and I've talked about it over the years, we've basically come to three different things that we can think we can help clients with regulation when one of their pain words is unsafe. Do you want to talk about that?

Yeah. Lack of safety. We traditionally say there are three things that you can do in terms of lack of safety to make yourself safer. One is to empower yourself to do something around the situation that moves it towards safety. If you're in a unstable neighborhood, what can you do that's constructive for the neighborhood, like putting up more lighting or getting to know the people around you. Start organizing people to keep an eye on one another. Organize yourself around having emergent, non emergency and emergency numbers for law enforcement, things of that nature, learning how to remove gang tagging and things of that nature. I mean, all these things are important to empower yourself on. You are usually not helpless. If you isolate yourself and tell you you're helpless, it usually complicates your situation. The second thing is, I just want

to add into that in these days and times too, having a plan, if something did happen that removed you from your community, from your family, that you have a specific plan in step in order for your spouse, your children, whatever the concerns are, to just ruminate on, oh my gosh, what if this happens? What if this happens? What if this happens? Is not going to be helpful. But to say, okay, there's a reality that this could happen. How, as a therapist, can I help you come up with a plan in case it does?

So

I think that's so helpful. I mean, to just name the thing. Like, we have our. We know what our next step is for the plan so we can move on instead of just ignoring it, like, yeah, I think that's great.

And they're fear. They're afraid and that's okay. It's. What do we do when we're afraid? You know? Yeah.

And in our day and Time. These, these are some harsh plans that we have to make. One of the things, you know, our children live in New York City. Yeah. You know, we live in Sedona, which is. Seems like it's safer, but it not necessarily is. You know, we've told all of our children if. If we're in a. We're in a tough situation, terrorist bombing, a sniper situation, do not wait for me. Yeah, you, you know, get your kids in red. Do not look back.

Yeah, don't take your.

Don't come back. You know, those, those type of things, I mean, these are hard actions, but they're also empowering actions to say, ah, if the worst happens in that scenario, we know, we know what to do. The second thing is, it really doesn't address the lack of safety. It makes us feel better about the lack of safety, is that misery loves company. When we're feeling unsafe, find people who are also unsafe. Talk to them, connect. That connection is, is a bulwark around our sense of aloneness that always empowers us. More good ideas come from other people. So connecting is one of the things that we can do when we feel unsafe. The, the third thing is kind of ties into. In terms of empowerment. You know, David Brooks always makes this point in his book, the Road to Virtue is the only way you learn virtuous character. The only way is through hard time. That's. That is the incubator for virtue. And so it's not like, oh, well, we're experiencing this polarized time. Gee, what will we learn from this? It's not that it's looking backwards, saying, we have all experienced hard times before. What. What are the virtues that emerged that helped us make it through that hard time? The loss of a brother, the loss of a father. Financial setbacks, loss of jobs, displacement of family members. What. What virtue developed out of that time and then using that virtue in the present moment to get to the next virtue, if that makes sense.

I know I've said this. Everybody that's ever heard me speak has probably heard me say this. But Connie Horton, who was a dean of students at Pepperdine University, frequently said, the best thing you can teach your children is that they can do hard things. And we have got to start teaching our children, not protecting them from hard things, but we've got to start teaching our kids, you can do hard things. You're going to be okay. Let me see what. Let me tell you what I've seen in you in the past. Let me tell you what I believe about you. You can do it. And let them do hard things is really important.

So, so good.

I always have to give a shout out to Connie because I thought it was so good.

God bless you, Connie Horton.

Bless you.

And all the hard things you've taught us that we are capable of ticking, that we can do.

Yeah. So

I have so many thoughts I'm trying to figure out what road do you want to go down, Rhett? There's so many good roads to go down.

I don't know if this is helpful, but I was just thinking just about like theological integration too, as you've been working on this model, you know, of moving from reactivity to polarization to extremism and just any, any thoughts you have on just theological integration or practice. I was also thinking of the work of Mirror Stuff Wolf. I like his book Exclusion and Embrace and like thinking about some of that stuff. There's not a lot written though I feel like helpful in what you've been talking about. So just wondering, just kind of wondering what you've been processing in that aspect.

Well, I think, I think it's really important to remember that, you know, what we're called to in the disciples way is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness. Those are the things, self control. Those are the things that we're called to. When we do those things, we open a door for we go against the tide instead of being reactive to the extremism. We are in a place where we're able to make a difference. But I do think that there is disturbing, quite frankly. You know, if that were the only answer, I would, I would find that easy. Right? But you, you have Jesus himself saying, you know, you brood of vipers, when he's talking to the Pharisees and Sadducees and say, I'm, I'm done talking to you. And he never, he never utters another word. He, he, he's. He tells his disciples, there is a time to knock the dust off yourself and leave. And I, this is the harder thing. But I think that it's, I think, I think there's a way that we work this out is that when we confront injustice. In other words, that's the thing. If you look where Jesus supposedly gets angry, right, Those times that he gets involved, he's confronting something that is appallingly unjust, appallingly offensive. And the action he takes is usually to try to undo the injustice or expose the injustice. And he does that sometimes by leaving, saying, no, I'm not engaging in this, this kind of quackery or something like that at other times he says, I'm turning over the tables. Although I always wonder about that turning over the tables in the temple. Whether he's really angry or he is feeling like this is an appalling injustice. And it, I think he could be turning over those tables because he's enormously sad and offended. But I think that, I think that what, what we're obligated to do is to make those connections, in being reflective of those fruits of the spirit, but also realizing we're talking entitled extremism, people that are taking it to the nth degree to hurt people or to exploit people. If we're empowered to be able to stop the exploitation, we should do that. Sometimes, particularly with family members, we need to be able to say, well, you know, I've given several exit ramps, I've given a good report and keeping myself regulated and trying to connect with you, but this is not working today. We'll, we'll try again next week or we'll try again in six weeks or something like that. I mean, those are the types of things that we need to be prepared to do. Fortunately for clients, when we find ourselves, you know, in the, in the midst of an entitled extremist and we do what we're doing in terms of talking about what is the pain that's driving that, what are the actions that you take? How do people react? What is, what does that make you feel? Those are great entry points, but there are times where we have to say, we're not going to make progress today. That's okay, I'll see you next week. You know, and fortunately that's the normal way that we see clients. I don't know if that's helpful or not.

So can I just ask one question? I also think some of, as we've looked at those scriptures where Jesus gets dysregulated. No. Where he makes a point, it's always against religious righteous people. Is that fair?

Entitled extremists.

Entitled extremists, yeah.

He tries to cut off the damage by the way of the entitled extremes.

It's, it's not towards sinners. And I think we have to really, that is a message for our day and time that we need to really. And when, when people use those verses to say, well, Jesus was angry, I think we've got to be mad at what's he mad at. And it's not centers or people who,

it's not the opposite side, it's not

them, it's religious self righteous people. And that's a little frightening to Me, you know, sometimes. So that was the only thing I wanted to just add to that. But also the other theological thing that I think is important for us to remember, depending on the population that we work with and Christians that we work with, but we not only have Scripture encouraging us to the fruits of the Spirit, like Terry mentioned, we have the power of the Spirit that works within us. And depending on your population and depending on how that hits somebody, it's like, you're not alone in this. You do have the helper that lives within you that you can really, you know, just like when I'm in. When I'm in a session or when I'm with somebody and I start getting dysregulated, I start praying, lord, I'm getting dysregulated. Help me. Help me see this, help me understand, help me stay connected. Because I. Because I think part of the dysregulation is we feel so alone. So that would be the only other theological thing that I might add. And that's really helpful for some people that. Or Christians to say, just, you know, rely on that, the help that you have, and it will be helpful.

Yeah. The spiritual message also is, is that we have to point toward the truth. We're. We're not supposed to be the people in control. Sometimes we are, but most of the time we're not. And so we may be the. We have to reckon with the possibility that we. And certainly in our history of being faithful, our history has a long history of people being victims of entitled extremism. And it calls for courage to be able to stand for emotional regulation and not fight emotional regulation, not fight fire with fire.

Yeah.

And again, I think we all talked about this. We all know this is true. When we say that, we're not saying, live in your peace cycle and don't make any waves, you know, we're saying, talk about these things calmly, with conviction in your conscience. You know, just don't move to destructive coping to make your point, because, number one, it's going to push people away. But number two, we still need to stand firm in what we believe. And what we believe is maybe harmful to our country or to our community or to our church, you know, and be able to talk about it, but just talk about it with connection and calmness and not accusation and blame.

Yeah, I. I think that's so important. I think the biggest changes in my life were because people lovingly dealt with me and, like, just. I still remember sitting down. I grew up in the south, which is, you know, we. We have our people. And I dealt with a lot of racism as a kid. And I remember telling. And I have my entitlement around the racism I experience. I remember talking to a buddy, an African American friend of mine, and I was telling him my little story of, whoa. And I don't know what it was about the way he embraced me, but he was like, dude, I'm so sorry that happened to you. And he looked at me, he said, now, Lance, you know what I deal with every single day? And I just. When he said that to me, I. All of a sudden my eyes are, like, opened. You know, I was woke in this place of, like, what his experience was like, because of my own. Because he identified with my own experience. And I just think we have to be willing to just go into the water, because if he didn't go into the water with me, I would have walked around with my little woe is me story for the rest of my life of, like, my little bad thing that happened to me. But what I learned was like, no, that's not right. I can't just stand with what happened to me. There's so much more to learn.

And yeah, powerful point, Lance, is because in times where you have this entitled extremism really present, they're always the weakest of these, the least of these for us to find. It becomes more. They become more exposed because they're usually the ones taking the brunt of the entitled extremism.

I heard a quote yesterday, Kim Burns just was saying what he's been learning in this time is this whole idea that the thing that will change another person's life is not arguing issues. It's your story. And I think, you know, that's a great example, Lance, of you telling a story and then somebody being able to tell you their story. And it's like, whoa, my eyes were, you know, really opened. And, you know, I could give you a lot of examples where I've been opposed in somebody in thought or on another side of belief and said, well, tell me. Tell me how you feel that way. And they tell me a story and it's like, oh, I get that now. I understand. And then I have a chance to tell my story. And Ken said, when somebody looks at you and says, oh, wow, I never thought about it that way. That's. That's what's going to help you reach in and change people's lives, too. So I do think our stories, calmly told in a connecting, compassionate way, can help people understand as we listen also to other people's stories, also Saying what

we choose to do in the face of other people's dysregulation, you know, that's our fourth step. Right. When I'm emotionally dysregulated, I say what I feel, say what I normally do when I'm moving into my peace cycle. I saved my. I say to myself the truth about who I am and my sense of safety. Then I mobilize what I am able to do at that particular time. That's enormously powerful.

Yeah. When you have a client that can step into, say, in their four steps and say, I love you, whoever it may be, their dad or their grandfather or whoever it is, and say, I really long for a really meaningful relationship with you, and today we're not having it. I really look forward to that next time when we can try again. Yeah, it's just not going to work today.

Yeah.

You know, like, to be able to, like, have that empowered choice step of, like, living the love, but setting the boundary, knowing that, you know, to. To borrow a little language from my good friend Terry Hargreave, to give them the opportunity for compensation down the road and, like, just being mindful of that, so. Oh, man. So many good things. Rhett, where are you?

I just.

I got a lot of work to do.

Us, too, Rhett.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. I'm just, you know, it's a. It's a heavy. It's a heavy. It's heavy time. It's heavy conversation. But I. I feel really hopeful, and I'm. I'm just. Go back to what you said. I'm just more and more convinced that, you know, we just look to the world that I. You know, the people that I do life with, and if everybody, you know, did the work around them, the world would be quite different. But we spend a scales to anxiety. I think a lot of our anxiety spins us out to look at all the things that we don't have control and we spend our energy looking at out there and fail to see what I could do today.

And you should write a book about that, Rhett.

Yeah, we all want to. You know, we all want to make a huge impact, but the biggest impact is just the people who come in our office every day and the people we go home to every day and the neighbors around us. And maybe that's me aging, too. I'm just more and more convinced that the most important work is just right here in front of me and it's not out there, and that's what changes the world.

You said it.

Yeah, but I think. I think that's what was so encouraging to me when I got off the phone with Clint the other day.

Yeah.

If we have, I don't know how many restoration therapists there are out there.

A lot.

Choose a thousand.

Eight.

We have enough. A thousand restoration therapists out there that are teaching their 50 clients to self regulate. We're changing the country.

Yeah.

And, and I don't want us to lose sight of that. We as restoration therapists are helping people know how to self regulate. That's. I, I know this is my soapbox, but that's the answer to the. All the pain that we're facing these days. So I just want to say, yes, I agree with you, Red. It's our circles, but when we think about the circle of RT and all the therapists and all the clients that come in to see all the therapists, we can change a lot.

Yeah. That's what gives me hope. Because it's not up to me. At the end of the day, I just do what I can do. And if we're all doing what we can do, that's. I mean, it only took 12 disciples to turn the world upside down.

And one of them had a screw loose. I think a lot of them did. But I mean, just think about that. I mean, our model is built on change. There's so many models that are out there that just say, here's how you tolerate and put up with that.

Or cut them off.

How you tolerate and put up with that.

Yeah.

No, we had to change.

I was reflecting a lot on, well, Terry, you and Sharon, one of your friends or acquaintances. There's a Henry Nou book back there on my shelf in the name of Jesus. And he's talking to Peter. You know, Peter wants to be powerful in this position in John chapter 21 and kind of tells him, you know, one day you're going to be led to places you don't want to go and a belt wrapped around your waist. And I've been just reflecting a lot on the idea too of just the disciples way is a way that we often don't want to go and places we'd rather not be be led to. And you know, we, we might be in a time, you know, or a moment in time where there are things that, you know, that discipleship requires that we just don't want to do or that we're not prepared for. And that's pretty, that's pretty heavy, you know, and just. But it's also very hopeful

because we're not alone.

Yeah.

And, and I just, I Just want to remind. I want to remind people, those that come from a. A spiritual perspective. 1968 was the most polarized time that we experienced as. Teenagers that the world had seen up until that amount of time. Maybe the most polarized time in 25 to 30 years in that generation. And just so happens the Jesus movement picked up in 1969 through the mid-70s. So, you know, who knows? There's. There's reason, you know, I, I'm. I may be wrong, but I think God's at work, so.

Yeah, I don't think you're wrong, Terry. Yeah, I gotta lean on that. He probably is at work. We just kind of figure out how.

Yeah.

I always like that line in the line, the witch in the world. The line, the Witch and the wardrobe, where it's like, Aslan is on the move.

Yeah.

You know, and constantly working all things together for good.

Oh, gosh, you say that. I feel like the beaming of hope inside of me when you say Aslan is on the move, knowing the embod that he is the embodiment of what Jesus would be in Narnia. Wow.

Yeah. Any.

We got about 10, 10, 12, 13 minutes left. Any other loose ends or thoughts that anybody wants to share or just are kind of pondering or thinking through? If not, that's okay, but want to leave space for that.

I just want to encourage listeners to. The things that we're talking about are still settled and not. In changing our clients first, it's changing ourselves most essentially so that we can get in a position of helping our clients to change. So again and again and again,

put

ourselves in a position of hope, put ourselves in a position of. Of change and hopefulness for our clients. Don't lay low, don't go away, don't pull the covers over your head and stop looking forward. Be thinking about how you can handle the client in front of you instead of thinking, oh, God, when is this hour going to be over? You know?

Yeah, I don't know. I. I just really appreciate the opportunity to share these things with you all today. I just want to say thanks. It's a. It's been on our hearts a lot and through. Through our schools, through our communities, through our churches, through mainly our families. This stuff is tearing people apart. And so I'm hopeful that this conversation has been helpful to say, you know, let's get back to the business of helping people self regulate.

Yeah. I was thinking about your language, you and the deals. Even in. I know it's a book on marriage, the mindful marriage, but I was thinking about the language of partnering, you know, and when we're emotionally dysregulated or into co regulation, we're just trying to parent each other. Right. And tell each other what to do. But when we're emotionally self regulated, we move into partnership with the people around us. And that's a whole different empowering position.

Especially now when Christians are kind of upset with each other. Yeah, we're all on the same team here. I think that's a good word.

Is there any besides the work you two are doing? I mean, I just, I guess I'm wondering if there's any resources or people that you think are worth reading even if it's not hits a spec, you know, specifically square in the eyes. I mean Terry, you've mentioned several times, not just today, but before you like the work of David Brooks and on his stuff on virtue, you know, it was really great. Just wondering if any other names come to mind for either of you?

Yeah, I, I think that you can comfort yourself in pain. I think that you can connect with others. I think one way to run back to the people that have spoken before. You know, if you, if you, if you want to be challenged in your devotion reading, read Brother Lawrence. You know, if you, if you want to be challenged and how to be a servant, read Henry Nouwen. But if you, if you want to do this, and I'm not patting us on the back, I'm just saying this is the way what we're defining in terms of relate restoration therapy, it is a self regulating framework. Go get yourself emotionally regulated yourself and do that work and the journey on yourself. This is not about. Because quite frankly it may be out there somewhere, but I haven't found it yet. What we're saying is distinctly different than protecting yourself or setting boundaries or things of that nature. We're talking about the turn of the tide from within. So.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sharon, your favorite, every podcaster writer is going to write a book on how to set boundaries over the holidays around politics, right?

No, I don't let people use that word boundaries.

I know, I know. As I'm saying, I'm sure that's what

for another day maybe.

Lance, it sounds like Terry and Sharon have another book in them that they're gonna get ready working.

Oh yeah, I'm ready.

I, I wouldn't count on that. Fellows.

Man. Hey, can I just thank you guys from the bottom of my heart. I mean, as much as I wanted to give this to everybody else, I needed it for myself today. Yeah, I, I will lean into my four steps again and I will continue to do that. Sharon is the one that asked me. Sharon asked me and Lance. Are you using this in your home too? This is like you know back in 2011 and like oh yeah that would be a good idea and it changed everything. I mean it's, it's crazy to think that like I, I probably because we're controllers that you know by if I can make everyone else right then I'll be okay. But man if I lean into myself like my own misery and and find the truth that God has for me or that I need in my soul and find that self regulation I become a much better person. So this is exactly what I need today. Thanks guys. Thank you so much.

Thanks very privilege.

Well enjoy the Sedona day people.

We will.

Take care. Okay, bye bye bye bye.

Sa.