Season 1 | Episode 40 | Special Guest, RT Therapist Michael Cox

We'll get it right.

Dude, how are you? I am tired. Way too late.

Oh, yeah, you were watching the baseball game, probably.

Yeah.

Well, luckily our guest is going to energize us and he's returning from episode two, which is now episode 40. What's up, Michael Cox?

What's happening, fellas?

How are you doing?

I'm good. I think it's a lot of pressure if I've got to energize you, but we'll do our best.

Well, I know we're all tired, too. Before we got on, you said you're, like, focusing on sleep these days.

Yeah. Yep, yep. I got some good sleep last night. Last night. So maybe I can bring the energy.

Well, you've had quite the schedule. I'll say. You've been. You've been writing, you've been teaching, you've been doing intensives.

Yeah.

Marriage workshops, therapy, practice. You've been all over the place.

Yes, it is.

Michael talks, not do what I want to figure out.

I was gonna say sleep, but I got some great sleep last night. So, you know we're doing good. Yeah. Doing good. Yep. Tired of beer.

Michael Cox doesn't do nothing. That's what we know.

I have some good moments. I have some good nothing moments. And it's usually watching, like the Great British Baking show or something like that, or the Amazing Race.

Well, I have a lot of things we want to talk to you about. Episode 2. We talked a lot about adolescents and working with kids and families using RT intensives. Intensives. Want to bounce around a little bit this morning, if that's cool with you. But I kind of. If you're open to it, I want to just hear a little bit about the project you've been working on and has been working on it. Any new insight, things you've been learning about. I don't know, rt, about yourself, about working with adolescents, families.

Yeah. So project Just A Quick Update is in the hands of publishers, and we are literally praying and waiting for someone to say, this is the project they want. And so we are waiting, which is not the fun part on, for somebody to. To pick it up, but also my prayer stepping into it was like, you know what? The group that needs this is going to see it and be like, hey, this is the book that we've been waiting for. And everybody else will be jealous. I don't know, we'll see what. See what happens. So that's exciting to be there. After just going back and forth with the agent, we were able to kind of get whale. It down. What was been was good maybe since we talked, got really good feedback from the agent on some content. And as much as I think, I think I told you this before, as much as I didn't want to write a clinical book, a lot of it felt clinical. I think when I got into their hands and the feedback was, hey, let's make it a few more stories, a little bit more intimate, practical. So really got to go back at least the first three chapters. That's what was submitted to the agent and going on the publishers. The first three chapters have been almost just not re. Chapter one's pretty much the same. Chapter two and three were pretty overhauled, pretty good. And just a lot of it is just diving into stuff, experiencing with my own family, families I've worked with. You know, when you start thinking about your own stuff, I don't know about you guys, when you think about rt. I have learned, and I don't know if I said this on the last podcast, but in the process, what I've learned is I think I see my pain cycle emerge a lot faster and often with my kids than with my wife, maybe because my wife and I've been doing the work for a while and so it doesn't seem the same, but it's a whole nother thing. And I started thinking about why do I have so many stories of dysregulation with my children?

That makes for good material though, right?

I don't need clients. I don't need stories from clients. They got plenty of my own with three boys.

Oh, man.

And they're teenagers now. Oh, man. It's. The book's based on adolescence and I've got three of them to. To experiment on.

The big question is how much of the royalty do they get?

The kids.

Yeah, yeah.

I remember at some point, my brother and I, because we were, you know, we're pastor's kids and we're getting older and we realized, man, we are the center of all my dad's illustrations. And so we went up and said, you know, I think it's time when you cut us in on a deal for every time you talk about us, we should get some kind of cut back here.

They haven't quite gone there yet and I'm not giving them the prompt to ask. So we'll see.

Hopefully they don't listen to this.

Yeah, they'll see.

The last.

I don't know how much they will read it till they become parents, who knows? But so so far, there's no deal.

What's been the cause A lot of people listening, I think, you know, I think a lot of people would have. Would. Would like to write a book at some point in their life or would like to write, you know, and I. There's some really famous quotes by like, writers, you know, how much they hate writing. But to. But to have written is awesome, you know, the whole process. So, you know, you being a therapist all day, in and out of practice and intensives and stuff, has that been hard to carve out time to write or has that been like a good break for you or.

Yes and no. I mean, I think now that I've done it and now that I'm having to kind of stay on it regularly, more ideas come to mind, more thoughts about like, oh, okay, this might be an extra interesting topic or maybe an add on or. So I think that kind of stays consistent. The one thing I think I've adjusted to, I like journaling. Like, I'm one of those guys that kind of seasonally journal. Like, I'm not. I don't do it every day. Definitely don't. Probably don't do it even every week, but kind of a seasonal journal, journaler. And it's kind of felt that way to me of like, there's times where I sit down and it's like, hey, I'm getting after it and I've got a lot of stuff to put out there now that I feel like I've got a little bit of more leeway to make some adjustments to even what I've currently written. It's been really good. I think the harder part becomes just this sense of trying to collaborate with people and figure out, like, how do I. You mentioned, you know, earlier, I think we were talking about being the adolescent guy or family guy for rt.

Yeah.

There's this sense of, hey, where do I get the banter, dialogue back and forth on that topic. And so my journal and sometimes even chat, GBT becomes my conversational list to try to figure out and flesh out my idea. So. So I think it goes back and forth. Yeah.

And I think, you know, out of this too, what's emerged is. Well, I don't know if it. I think, I mean, it seems like it's emerged from this too, is you. You've dived into. Yeah. Got a great podcast called the Heart Work Podcast. You're.

Look it up, guys.

Yep.

It makes us look like chumps.

Yeah, it's.

It's. It's nice and slick, man. I like it. It's good stuff. And you've actually.

Michael Cox is A really good looking guy too, let's be honest.

Thank you very much.

And you got the art, you know, the Instagram up and going. Tell us a little bit about just that podcast and that experience and the. And the name of the podcast.

Yeah, yeah. So the name of the podcast is the Heart Work, and they have to put with Michael Cox. We didn't do our best research before because there's a couple of other out there called the Heartwork. And so you've got to actually search by my name and the Heartwork to find it. Like, total transparency. It came from the need to be out there. I don't know if I said that before, but when it came to developing and trying to get this book, one of the things that came back from the agent was that I didn't have a following. Like to go to a publisher and be like, hey, who's gonna buy this book? I'm like, I don't know people. And Lance and I are for sure.

Oh, I'm in. I probably get a bunch of. At least buying 12.

At least 12. All right. Yeah, take it. So she said, hey, you've got to do something. And so that was it. And the lady that helped me with my branding, who's been amazing, we were just kind of go back and forth. I actually put back out on social media, like, hey, here's some ideas of what I'm thinking and here's some thoughts that I have with people I know. And all of that kind of kept coming back and nothing was landing. And Giselle is her name. Giselle sends me a message. She's like, hey, how come you didn't tell me you were looking for a name? She helped me with all of, like, all the background and like writing of who I am for a brand, all that kind of stuff. And she was like, I think it's pretty clear you need to name it the Heart Work. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's it. Like the lights went off and all that stuff.

Right.

It was a lot of fun, but it was, I think, from the. From the basis of really doing, like just getting deeper and talking about what's going on with individuals lives and how to look at the individual. How do we address family in particular? And then how. What does that look like in the context of maybe church and community? And so it's just having conversations with folks around those topics and just getting a little deeper around who they are, what they're about. So when I have professionals on, I try to do my best to get them to get beyond their professional hats and just talk about life and what's going on with their life and how they're dealing with life and all that fun stuff. So it's been fun. It's another thing to do. But, you know, we're doing it.

Yeah, you're doing a great job of it, you know, and also, you know, we don't have any Olympians on our podcast, so Michael did have Olympic gold medicine, Marion Jones on the podcast, so.

I did love it. She's so funny about that. Is. She's great. She's like, use my name. She's like, leverage whatever you need to. To get it out there. I was like, sweet. How about you just. You endorse me, and we'll be good to go? So it was good.

That's pretty cool, bro.

Yeah. Yep.

Well, and I think one of the hard things just to kind of go there with being a therapist. I mean, we're all in our own practices. I mean, there is an aspect, a huge aspect, which they don't train you in grad school and talk about it, but, you know, we have to somehow get our name out there to the public, whether we are hanging up a shingle and having a private practice or a group practice or we want to sell a book. And that's just kind of the side that we just don't talk about in therapy. I think as therapists, we just picture ourselves in a. In a room doing the deep work with clients and not realizing, yeah, there's another component as well that we got to get good at also.

You got to get them in the room. I got to get them to you.

Yeah.

If you build it, they will come things kind of. It was a good movie.

Yeah, that's about it. Well, and, you know, this Lance is a. Having a group practice, but, you know, I've got interns and associates, and they kind of come out with that perspective of like, hey, I've got the degree now. Why aren't the people flooding and knocking on the doors to come see me? Like, hey, this is how it's supposed to happen. I just get a degree, and suddenly we are flooded with clients. That didn't work that way.

Oh, man. Dude, that was a. I. Going back to those days, that was a workout, trying to, like, create a name for yourself. I remember, like, just going around to all the pastor. I would go to every single convention I could go to, talking to people, getting to know people, and then, like. And then, like, working the craft of, like, being a really good therapist. But then when You're a good therap. Like, this is a talk about restoration therapy. I tell my guys this, that when you become a really good restoration therapist, your people get better quicker. Like. Like a psychoanalytic therapist. Like, they could see the same client. They. Their. Their full client load would be under a hundred, Right?

Yeah.

And I'm like, man, I've. I've had hundreds of clients already.

Yeah.

So. Because we. We do good work. We get them out, we get the practice, and they're out of here. So, yeah, it's. It's a tough. It's tough being an RT therapist because. Because all the healing work that transpires in our therapy work.

Yeah. When people get. When they start doing it, I think that's a little bit we were talking about earlier. Yeah, man. Rhett, was it. It's. When you do it, we know it works. I think we all three could say we know it works because of our own lives, our marriages and relationships. We've. We've seen it happen, and I think we champion that. When my wife and I get to work together with couples, in the individual stuff that I do, there's this sense of, I. I am confident that if you utilize the tools that are being given, you're going to see a change. And so it is. As we were talking earlier, sometimes, at least right now, it seems to be on the forefront for me, I don't know if it's just people feeling very justified to stay in their pain and wanting to stay in their pain, even, like, literally just talking with a couple yesterday, just having this sense of, like, they. They literally came and were like, hey, we think we're ready to kind of progress and move on. That's as far as I can tell you on that. But. But just walking through and just going back. And so I think there's two ends of it. One is grace, because we know that, hey, life is going to happen. And it's. The beauty of having this tool called the Four Steps is that when life happens, we have something to help us through the process. But it's also this sense of feeling very justified in our pain. Like. Like, I'm. I can stay here just because. And I guess technically people can, but it's going to get them towards healing. And so I think it's just getting to that place of helping people know that, hey, there is better on the other side, but you got to do the work to get there.

Dude, I feel you.

I'm.

I'm in the middle of reading Brene Brown's new book. Strong ground. And she's got this chapter on transformation. And she talks about in transformation, you have to break things. And. And she talks about in there, like, one of the hardest things is, like, you have. You have to change your mindset. Like, that is like one of the hardest things to change. And yeah, like, literally, as RT therapists, that is what we're doing. We are working to change mindsets. And it's such a workout.

Yeah.

Because our brains want to do everything opposite. I have no interest in what you're talking about right now.

No, I just want to stay here. Well, you know, it's interesting though, yesterday, and this has come up more. More times than not, and I find myself here. More is helping people just make the correlation between what we do in RT to what happens in our own spiritual walk. Like, there's this sense that, like, when we go to the Lord, if something's happening, particularly with sin, I think is we have this expectation that it's supposed to be poofed away right in that, all right, hey, God, I don't want this anymore, so just, just take it and it's going to be gone. And as opposed to. Though there's some work to be done on our end, especially when we've developed habits or sin in our lives, that it. Like, there's a. There's a process for healing, there's a process for us getting and living in redemption, and yet we have this mentality. And to be honest with you, I was having this conversation again yesterday, a lot of conversations yesterday, by the way, but this conversation about how we. What we highlight in the church sometimes is the people who were radically changed. Right. There is this. There's like this hyper focused on the people who were drug dealers or users one day and tomorrow they're not, and they never went to drugs again, which is a great thing. Like, I don't want to minimize that, but that is not the norm. But yet that's how we live out our life. And I think sometimes that happens in our offices is that people show up of like, well, I came to you and I've been with you for three weeks, three months, whatever it is, why haven't I changed? Or why aren't things different and why am I paying you all this money? Well, what are you doing when you leave my office? And there's just this. This expectation that it's supposed to just happen without any work. Poof.

Yeah, I was. I've been just reading a lot more of some stuff with. Around Paul, and I was thinking. I was thinking about the timeline. You know, I mean, dates are a little off, depending on who you read. But probably around like, 36 A.D. he has that radical conversion right with the light in Damascus. But then he disappears for a few years to Galatia. And we think he's probably growing and learning and being transformed self, probably breaking things. And then he spends another 27, 28 years in those churches. But when you read it on a Sunday morning, it almost without the context, it feels like it just happens quickly, you know, like, oh, people are transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Cool.

Take off the old, put on the new. Done, you know, But I'm like, this is written over the course of years with communities he's been with for 20, 30 years that he's, like, he's frustrated with and he's trying to get them to change. And I don't know. I agree with you. We read it and think, oh, this should happen quicker or my partner should be the one to change. I don't want to change.

Yeah, that they change. I'm going to change. Yep, yep.

Go ahead.

No, I just think you also have, like, why. Why do we have this conversation of what we use in rt? Like, the whole purpose of the four steps and the peace cycle is, you know, building new pathways. Right. And so there's this sense of, like, painting this picture that building pathways takes work. Like, you know, you said Lance Renee talked about breaking things. I'm like, you got to go dig away brush and weeds and all this stuff to create a pathway that's a new pathway and it doesn't just happen. And I think that's where it sticks, is that, you know, and it's easy to say, which I think is still true. We do live in a society where everything is immediate. Like, literally everything that we want is pretty much at our fingertips. And so to have to truly do the work towards change, it's amazing that folks aren't willing to do that. However, to your point while ago, Lance, right. In your typical psychodynamic theory approach, people will sit in the counselor's office for three, four, five years doing the same thing over and over and thinking, okay, I'm in counseling, so maybe my life's going to be better at some point, but they also get stuck in that rut and. But at the same time, not pursuing change and wanting to do the work to pursue it. So.

Yeah, I, Yeah, I'm.

I.

This idea around, like, helping people to change, I think it's. It really. We're asking a lot, and I don't think we realize that sometimes that there is a huge creature comfort about doing. Even if it's like, even if, you know it's horrible for you. Yeah, it's so, it's so comfortable to do that, which is like what you do because you know what you do.

You mastered it.

Yeah, I, yeah. So to, to shift someone to this new place, I think it is a. You know, it. I feel like sometimes I'm part motivational speaker, like at this stage of the game, you know, I always, I always quote the statistic. They're like, hey, this is what we know. We, we. You could talk about your pain, you can talk about this. But the one thing that makes the biggest difference is if you use your four steps, the people that are using that two years later, they just from an intensive, you know, they, they say that they're not only better, these are like people that were like ready to end the marriage and everything. They're not only better, but they're thriving, like. And I think it's so hard to practice though.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, you mentioned this is kind of jumping topics, but you mentioned ask earlier about kind of what's I'm passionate about right now. Something that's been revealed recently. Not revealed, but it's just more the forefront. I've known this for a while is I'm really fighting this battle with doing therapy with folks because maybe the pendulum is really swung and this is going to not sound fun for our, our profession, but that, you know, sometimes I think people feel like therapy is the answer to everything and particularly parenting. So just because I think right now I'm more hyper focused on what I'm doing and reading and looking at things, this challenge of challenging parents to say, to have to tell a parent, your child doesn't need therapy, your child needs parenting. And more and more where there's just this sense of folks when you start thinking about doing the work I've had, people stops coming to see me because they say we're not a good fit. And we're not a good fit because I will not just sit in the office and look at their child. They want their child to be in therapy, their adolescent to be in therapy. And you start talking about the issues that are going on and their parenting issues. But yet there's a therapist that's supposed to come in and fix their child or fix what's going on. And so there's this sense of where I find like this movement towards trying to do more family therapy. The resistance in that because there's an abdication of responsibility that's being kind of put on us as the therapist and say, hey, here's my child and what's going on? And you listen to the parents, literally what they bring the parent in with and you listen to what the child is dealing with and it's blaringly off. Is to me that it's a parenting issue and that they've got to just learn how to parent differently. Not saying they're bad parents, but just how to differently parent. They don't want to do the work. They want their child to come in the office and to be fixed. And to the degree that there are folks that I'm having to like, really challenge parents and say, I'm not really sure that I'm a good fit because I can't just sit in the office another day and play uno or go to the basketball court with your child because there's nothing psychologically wrong. But you don't want to sit in the office and do the work because you feel like I'm calling you a bad parent. And now I'm a bad therapist because I am telling you your child doesn't need therapy. I don't know if it's. Again, I know this. I know it's an area of passion, but it's definitely an area of frustration right now. Where it's a place, I think because of the hyper focus, is that it just seems that to folks that that's the answer. The answer is, let me just drop you off the therapist. And that's gonna fix the problem.

So help. Let's, let's, let's go down this line a lot because I, you know, this is, this is very common, especially, you know, where we live in California, like where there's this abdication of parenting in, in multiple ways. Tell me, like, what. Where have you found, you know, outside of kicking them out, which was just kicking them down the road, like, what. What are we supposed to do as therapists about these types of cases? Like, this is. This is like something that's very. I think it goes back to when I was first starting. People would be like, hey, can you fix my kid? Kate, can you fix my kid? And how, how can we help parents be better?

So I can tell you what I'm doing, whether or not it's helping parents get better. Well, maybe time will tell what it's doing for f. But I can tell you where I sit. So some of this becomes like, I've been talking with my interns about this, and we actually are spending some Time Friday. To be a little bit more intentional, even in our intake process when a adolescent comes is to be able to ask a parent, what is the parent and the student young person, what's your goal? Like, why are you coming to therapy? And what my ear has become attuned to is that when you start hearing things like, well, they're just being kind of belligerent. They are being disrespectful. They are not engaging with us anymore. They don't really want to be around us. You know, some of the stuff that I would. My teenagers do, right. Maybe my kids need therapy, who knows? But it is part of. Part of the process.

There's a.

There's a whole bank account for that for later, you know, but it is. Is being able to determine, like, what is. What's happening? What are the things that are going on? Like, there are some very telltale signs that we know as therapists. If a child is dealing with depression, they're dealing with anxiety, they're dealing with some of the typical things, maybe some of their identity stuff. We can see that and see how it's impacting multiple areas of their life. But when you start, I start hearing things like, you know, they just aren't engaging with us. They aren't nice anymore. They're not all these different things. It's kind of the sense of, like, again, outside of a conversation with them, is it that you don't feel like you can connect with them as a parent and to be able to figure out what is that. Is that what's missing, then, yeah, I would love to help you all know how to do that. If it is, something's wrong with them, literally, and we've got some assessment to do to figure out what that is. Yeah, we can do that. But when it comes to being able to have a conversation about. So I think I've told you guys this numerous time and I haven't changed. This is when I'm talking with a family to say, I can help your teenager with said issue, but you've got to be equipped to help them when they leave. And when I hear resistance on that is when I start to be concerned about. This isn't a teen issue when there's resistance from a parent to say, well, I don't think it's that. I don't think I need to be in it. Or I can literally tell you multiple sessions where I'm sitting in a family session and you've got parents arguing with each other about something happening with the teen. Teens kind of Sitting back and just kind of sitting there watching the things happening. And then they turn to the teen and say, well, you just need to do xyz and you need to da, da, da, da. And Michael, we'll have them see you individually next week so that we can work on this. And I give pushback, and I'm like, why aren't we working right now? Like, look at the dynamics of what you're experiencing. This is something happening between all of you. So to directly answer your question, like, what does that mean? I don't know that I have the answer yet in that, what do we do other than better assess why someone's coming into the office? Why are they coming? Is it just because I don't know what to do? Okay, then that's part of the exploration. Yeah, but this constant. And I've told you this, you guys, this before, and I still stand behind it. This constant, Let me just drop my teen off. They'll see you for 50 minutes. We'll see you again next week. I think gone are those days. Like, what? To what end are we doing that specifically without putting anybody's business out there and obviously not breaking confidentiality? I've got multiple young people that I work with that y' all told you guys that I require. 50% of the time is with parents in their sessions. And it's interesting how in the very beginning, parents are very open to that and ready to do it. But then suddenly I find that we're having more individual sessions because suddenly family sessions aren't happening. And I'm having to call parents and be like, hey, why are we missing? Well, my husband had to work, or this is happening. And it's like, well, suddenly these are becoming individual sessions as opposed to family sessions and having to tell parents, look, hey, either we're going to stop treatment or we've got to revisit what's going on. I honestly think some of it comes back to being willing to do the work and advocating the role of parenting. Even the degree of being able to say, I don't know, like, I don't know what I'm doing. Like, I will take that any day from someone, as opposed to just, hey, you take care of the business and fix my kid. I don't know if I answered your question, but I feel like I just ranted for about five minutes. It's good stuff.

What I'm hearing a few things, and maybe you can kind of. One is, if is I want you in the room with me, and I want you to practice with Me, I think this is like, this is even going back to our earlier conversation is like we, until we actually practice together, we talk about practice, you know, like until we're actually practicing together, like we're not going to get better.

Yeah.

Like, so that's one thing I'm hearing from you. Healthy assessment that we have to pay it, like we have to do a full assessment when we're working together. That, that's, that's really important as well. And you know, are our goals mutual? I find this, this is such a huge thing with, I wouldn't call myself like a big teenage therapist, but I've certainly had my, my fair share and I feel like, you know, when, when goals are not mutual, it does bring up a big problem. Like you know, the parents like I want my kid, you know, off drugs. I want my kid, my kid's autistic. I don't want them to be autistic anymore. My kids add, I don't want them to be ADD anymore. You know, whatever it is. Like, and the kids like, I'm fine. I don't want to be here. I hate you. Why am I here? I don't know. I don't know. And you get the I don't know this forever. Like, wow, you found another way to say I don't know. That's really impressive.

I limit, I count them in session. I love you. You get three per session. I don't know. Once you finish, you live it up. So you hit on something I think is, is, is big. There is. Sometimes it's tough when I, when I have a parent call in, I will ask the parent, one, does your teenager know you we're having this conversation. Two, our very first intake session is everybody. And as a part of that I tell the parents, I'm going to ask your teenager if they are brought in. Like I'm going to, I'm going to literally ask them do they want no one know why they're here then to like, do you have outside of like a small child, which I don't see, but a teenager to be able to say like, is this something you want to move forward in? And I'll get pushback sometimes from parents because they're like, well why are they being made, having to make a choice? And I said, so you want your teenager to come sit and talk to a strange bald headed black guy they didn't know nothing about and just sit and look at me for each session and you want to pay for that? Well, we think we can figure out how to make it work. No, we want them to have buy in so when they come back, they know where they're coming. Because, man, you want to get me upset is when a teenager sips in and like, oh, no, I didn't even know I had this today.

Yeah, I found out on the car ride over here.

Yes. And that's where we like the beauty of that is they. That's some fuel for the session. Because it's like, all right, parents, can you help me understand why your teen is here and they didn't know about it? I didn't think they would come. Why did you think they would come? And I'm asking you these questions right in front of your teenager of. All right, so if that's the case, like, we've got some work to do because it shows that y' all can't communicate. Let's figure out what that is. What's happening that y' all can't have a conversation about someone going to have help to a professional.

Would you. Let's say you have a 16 or 17 year old who can drive and they're the ones who are actually like, I want to go talk to a counselor. And it's not the parents. It's not. The parents are calling you. They're not even complaining about the kid or anything. They're just like, my kids express interest in talking to someone. Would you change your philosophy in terms of that first session, having a full family or allowing that kid on his own just to kind of drive there and see you? Because he's the one or she's the one who's inquired about talking, you know, you know what I'm saying? Like all day.

I only require the 50 family if you're 15 or younger.

Okay.

Yep.

Yeah, no, that's helpful because I'm just thinking about my own practice and I, I've. I spend less time with younger kids these days, like under 15, typically, just. It's happened naturally and maybe it's happened by my own unconscious choosing. The older my kids got, the young, the less young my clientele seemed to get sometimes. And I have a lot of kids, 17, 18, 19, who, you know, some are legally adults, but living with parents, things like that, parents paying. And I find a real. Trying to promote a sense of agency in them when they're willing to come on their own and drive themselves.

Oh, yeah.

And not have their parents in the room. You know, like, I've. It's been really interesting and I. This may take us off track too. Mike. Michael, I don't call You, Mike, just. I was thinking about our culture that's maybe overly therapeutic, that almost everything is an issue now. And so we almost think like normal teenage behavior, resistance, stubbornness, pushing up boundaries is like something's wrong, it's not normal, or we turn it into something that we must diagnose. And I find a lot of times just talking to parents about this is just normal behavior. And, and we're almost not used to that. I think in our culture that looks for answers in all the books and Instagram posts and everything. I don't know. I don't have a question really there. I just. That's what I've been thinking about a lot recently too.

Yeah. You know, there's a guy that spoke at our church Sunday. It'll come to me in just a second, what his name is, but spoke at our church. And he does a lot of ministry with churches and talks about his own story with chronic depression and anxiety and helps people in that area. And he does a lot of work. But he says with his generation and generation, he's in his 60s and he does a lot in that generation because he says what he finds on a regular basis are those parents coming in and saying their kids have just canceled them because all of what's going on in their life that's not good is their parents fault and their parents are the one that messed them up. And so if they disconnect with their parents, then, then their life is going to be better. And so it's, it's that it's this weird juggle because that almost sounds like counter to what I was saying. Right. When it comes to parents and the issue. And I think it's twofold. I think there's two things I think that are going on. One is literally this concept of mentorship. Olders passing it on to youngers, understanding what it's like to be a parent and what all the details about that are. People aren't around people doing it. And so to be able to understand there's a difficulties, there's contrast, there's all these things that happen in parenting. We're going to make mistakes on a regular basis. We're going to have some great times. So being in community where you actually begin to see that we talk about community a lot, but we're not having that. And so we're feeling very justified because, well, I'm not getting my knees met or I'm a victim because my parents spanked me at 2, I don't know, whatever it might be. And I have trauma Because I got a spanking at 2 years old. That's a whole nother conversation. But all of these things that are coming up, right, that are happening. And so I'm feeling justified in that, but I'm not pursuing it. But then I think what happens in our profession is they go and they sit down with a therapist, and that therapist says, you're right, you were traumatized or your parents were at fault and so on and so forth. And so therefore, you're okay with and justified to cancel them and to. To go on and find family somewhere else. So I think you have that. At the same time, I think you also have parents not knowing how to parent, literally not knowing what to do. And so, yeah, maybe there's some harm happening, but at the same time, it's just sense of. I'm advocating that to a therapist. I'm advocating it to an educator. I'm advocating it to someone else to do that parenting and not taking on. So you've almost got these colliding generations where you did have parents that probably didn't do a great job, but welcome to the club. But they also aren't finding the tools to be able to go and learn and do it differently, bro.

Man, I got to set boundaries with my parents, man. Come on. If Sharon Hargraves listen to this, she wants to come through the screen and talk about this.

Did y' all see in Psychology Today, they had a. The on estranged family? There's like a whole article on estranged families, like, mending estranged families. So I'm glad this topic is being talked about. I think it's really important.

You know what's interesting, too, I'll have people resist. We're putting the pain cycle up. There's a resistance to it sometimes because they, I think, assume, as a therapist, I'm going to blame their parents.

And.

And I'll. I mean, I've said all. I say it almost every week. I say, you know, like, whereas we're looking at their pain cycle, you know, this is not about placing blame in. In. In areas or camps. This is about understanding yourself and your own experiences. And at least for most families, there are some really beautiful things they did that we want to highlight and continue to do. And then there are some things they didn't do as well, and we want to learn from those and do those things differently, you know, and. But even that, like, there's resistance. Like, I don't even want to talk about this stuff because you're going to tell me to do this. So it's Pretty. What I'm hearing is it gets pretty messy. And people's assumptions about, like, maybe therapeutic work when they come in can be biased in certain directions.

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's. It's honestly why I have started leaning so strongly towards family work. Because the reality is, I mean, our families, the core of a family is just being ripped apart in whatever direction. And whoever fault is doing, I think we're all doing to whatever degree, but it's being ripped apart. And folks don't know how, nor do they want to. To your point, Rhett, is that folks aren't really pursuing that healing within their families. That doesn't make one person right or wrong. It's just being able to say that, hey, there's some healing that's needed in the family, which I think is going to be a ripple effect into what's. What has happened in our society. So it's that weird again, back to that weird contracts. There are some things that our parents didn't do that probably could have done better or that they could learn something different, I think. I don't know if I said this last time, but I'll say it again. It's worth repeating. Y', all. Y'. All. Y' all know Heather Cawthon.

I've never say her name right. Yes.

So we get to do intensives together. Such an amazing person. I could order all the time. I told her I'm gonna stop quoting her because I've said it more than three times, so it should be mine. But, you know, we were doing intensive together one time and we were talking about how someone. I had made this statement, right? Our parents did the best they could with what they had. Like, we all say that, right? In many different factors. And we're talking literally in the middle of an intensive. And she looked up, she goes, wait, I kind of have a problem with that. And she was like, yes. Like, yes. I think her parents did the best they could. What they had. She has. However, they were also adults that could have learned something different, that could have made the choice to acknowledge that there's something not going well and to choose to do something differently, which we all get the opportunity as adults to see. Now, that doesn't mean that we're always. Eyes are open to it. Maybe we don't see like all of those things, but I think that there's a place where we have to call people to a higher standard sometimes. Of like, it's why, again, for myself, of like. Okay, so as I said a while ago. Lance, you shaking or Nodding your head to it of like, if somebody comes in and just says, I don't know what I'm doing as a parent, I will take that all day long. Like I will. I'm happily do that. But unfortunately that's not what happens. Unfortunately it is this sudden that that's either the type. The child's fault. Yeah, right. Which is hence probably why we've got this older generation feeling like it's. They're. They're being abandoned is because they've been advocated their role as a parent to the kids. So it's either the child's fault or parents are releasing the responsibility to someone else. Right. So those things are happening right now. But it's the willingness to learn something new and the willingness to realize we all jumped into this thing as parents really not knowing what to do. And all we had to go off of is what we learned in our own adolescence and our own childhood. That could be good and that could be bad. But unfortunately then we marry somebody else who had a different adolescence and childhood. And we now got to figure out what does this mean as parents, ourselves. And that key of learning something different, therefore doing something different kind of comes back full circle. And sometimes folks are just aren't willing to do that.

Yeah, it's that first step in the 12 step process.

Yeah.

Damn.

Maybe this is why. I don't know, I'm just thinking here at a gut level, like instinctual level. I was really drawn to RT because. And it's, you know, Terry's work and his work in contextual family therapy and intergenerational family therapy and work around attachment that we have a model in RT to get to some deep stuff as it relates to families and family systems. And if you don't have that, you don't have that training, you can, you can get really lost real quickly in a session with the client not to not see that intergenerational work and to understand maybe how to make sense of that and to begin to change that.

Yeah.

So just shout out to rt.

I'm.

I'm thankful to be a part of this model.

Thanks, Terry.

Yeah, thanks, Terry. Sharon.

Sharon. Thank you, founders. Thank you.

Mike. You really, Michael. I don't know why I call you Mike on the podcast. They don't call you that in person. I. Yeah, I just love that you're passionate about this because I think working with. Well, first of all, working with couples, I think anecdotally what I hear is that it's harder and harder to find therapists who work with couples and there's not a lot of people, it seems like, who want to work with families sometimes.

So.

And it's messy and complicated. And so it's really like, I feel like talking to you on. On this. I like, It's. It's awesome that you seem pretty fired up about that, because I think we're lacking in our culture today, people who are willing to step into that place and. And work with an entire family system, because it is, man, it's complicated, it's messy, and it is not. It's not easy.

You know what's difficult? Right. And you and I were, I think, texting about this a little bit is the. It's messy. It's hard. People don't want to pay for it. First of all, don't see the value.

Yeah.

In family therapy, but at the same time, it does take work. Like, I cannot just sit in. I can't just come in. A family therapy, like, sometimes, maybe an individual and sometimes in couples, because of the beauty of rt, we're always doing a process. Right. I've got to prepare for a family session. And depending on the age of the kids and if it's adult kids, like, there's just a lot of things that go into that. And so I think sometimes to be able to really put the work in, it's not wanting, but it's also, like, to see that as a value. Like, I think that's probably the one thing that I'm running into is to see the value of doing a work as a unit, not just an individual, but because I think people begin to get a little offended, right. Of you're telling me our family's bad. And it's like, no, maybe, but, no, that's not what we're saying. It's just the fact that maybe there's something that needs to happen within the unit for support. But to get people on that train is really difficult because to see the need. Like, I. Another conversation I recently had was that, you know, there were therapists that will say their practice, they feel like it's unethical if, like, I'm working with a couple and then to see the family and work with the family, and it's just like, I get your practice maybe is not there, but how's it unethical to use a family, help, a family unit, to get healthy, to get better and to work on those things? And the foundation of that home is a marriage. Not. And literally had a couple tell me that they couldn't work with someone else because they felt it was Unethical for to be seen as a couple than to do family work. And you know, I said people have their areas of expertise in the way they want to do work, but it's definitely not unethical to work with you and a family.

The definition of ethics is what's in the best interest of your client. I mean that is, that is the, that is the thing. So this is in the best interest of your client. Yeah. To can like to, to open it up more. I mean this is foundational to all the founders of, of family therapy was bringing everybody in the room.

Yeah. I mean almost one freezing. It seems like once a week I'll, I'll get the question. A person will come in and there it's a first time intake individual and I find out their spouse has another therapist. And then they wonder if they should find another couple's therapist. And next thing you know, we're jugging three or four therapists. And you know, I say to them, it's up to you all what you want to do, but I do not see that any violation of ethics that I'm working with you and I work with you and your wife. In fact, I should probably call the. If you, if your wife will or your husband will sign off, I want to call the other therapist and find out how we can get on the same page too. And I don't know where that comes from. You know, maybe past experience or something they're reading online. But isn't it better for a person to work for the good of the whole system and to see all the pieces? I think so, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Terry jams that up a lot. I mean I've seen him talk, do consultation with, with people in the past where he's like you doing their individual therapy with this person is making their marriage worse. Like you. This couple needs couples therapy. They do not need your, your individual work of calming this person down and allowing them to rant about how horrible their spouse is. Making the theory like making their marriage worse.

Yeah.

They need to learn how to regulate together. So.

Yeah.

Because outside of rt, right. All they're doing is coming in and sitting and griping about what went wrong. And your 50 minutes is up. We'll come back next week and gripe about what went wrong that week. Sorry, my chair literally just.

He just like. Shrunken stature right before our eyes.

That was hilarious.

That's kind of good timing. As you were talking about that. Just. Yeah.

Let me just kind of grind a little bit, come down a little bit.

You know, something Interesting, too. I. I've run into it a couple times in the last couple weeks. Somebody came to see me again, a new. Just new. New client. And their spouse was fearful of them coming in, that I would encourage them to end the marriage. And, you know, outside of something that is obviously severe, there are things that we might say as therapists, like, this is. This is not good for your sense of safety or other things happening. But man is. As an RT therapist, I've. I hope and I've been trained that I believe in the restoration of relationships and marriages. And I want you to work at it.

Yeah.

Like, you come in. I'm not trying to help you end your marriage. You know, I might get down the road and decide like this. You're gonna have to make a decision about this relationship because there are some really bad things going on. But I just thought that was sad that their spouse. This person wants to get help, see a therapist, and their spouse is fearful that by going in, they're gonna leave the relationship. I don't know if that says something about what's going on, but. I think, like, all of you, I'm always interested in, like, how do we make this thing better? When you come in the office, how do we work together to restore, to bring restoration, not to cut off and to end. Yeah, right.

It's not. It's not desolation therapy. It's restoration theory. We're trying to heal, bro. We want to tell the best story ever. Like, the. The. I'm always. I mean, I'm. I'm like at the brink. I want to pull them back and let them experience the freedom that life has for them.

Like. Yeah.

You know, I. I hate. I never want to give up on marriage or the work that we do.

Yeah, we gotta. We gotta maintain that hope. I think it's. We were talking about families earlier, and I started thinking about talking with a couple. And you have done the work again. I think. I. I am on the conviction the marriage is a foundation of a home. Right. And if you can see where couples are struggling, you can oftentimes. Unless they're just really good at hiding, which we know when you start talking to a teenager, they didn't hide very well anyway. Is that you? Actually, to me, I begin to see hope for your family, because I think if I can help family, parents know how to regulate. If I can help a couple do that. I think it's easy when it comes to parenting because it's like this sense of. You are now empowered to move forward differently in your relationship with your child. And so the family component becomes very, very easy. Easy. But it's similar to, like in marriage, if you're only seeing one person, there's a. Maybe a half of the story, a fourth of the story, a third of the story of what's really going on. And so when we're trying to seek towards healing, like, how can I help you heal? But I don't know the full context. And if you feel like whoever's in the room feels like they're the problem, and maybe they are, I don't know. But if they feel like they're the problem, how do we ever get towards healing if we don't know how to deal with the total problem? What's happening? And so that's in a marriage, that's in family. It's in a unit of all those things of, hey, let's look at all of what's happening and help you walk differently to get to that. But that's been my mantra from the beginning. RT is just starting to help me get a little better grasp on it.

Yeah. You know, another. I don't have to go there, but I was just thinking, this goes back to. We were talking about earlier about, you know, we're therapists, but we also have a practice we're trying to run and everything, you know, and it's. It's challenging. And I think, Michael, I think you bring up some good points, even though you're maybe not saying it exactly is that, you know, to do good work often requires time and preparation. And if we have to take time preparation, that means we might have to have a smaller workload. But with a smaller workload means sometimes we see less people, which means sometimes our practice isn't as healthy as we need to be in terms of. From a financial perspective. And, and then you get the resistance of people wanting to pay for therapy or family therapy or see the value in it. It's. It's a really systemic issue. You know, I, you know, I think from where I sit, if, if I knew I could go into a family session and that family session would just. Or several or more would bring healing to my family, I think that would be just in. Invaluable when we look at maybe what we spend our money on or our resources on, typically, you know, and the ways that we spend money on to numb out from maybe our family issues. So I don't. I don't know how we answer that, how we address that, but I just think, man, how powerful that'd be if you had, you could really focus on a few sessions a day that you were really prepped for and do the deep, deep, deep work that would be life changing for the people in your community.

It's. It's part of it. I think you both could probably attest to this. Well, I know you can because you're RT therapist. But there is this sense that, that I. When I talk even to my interns or folks that I'm working with and like my interns observe sessions. And one of my guys, after observing a family session, he goes, I know exactly what I don't want to do. But to be able to have that conversation is. I've told them numerous times is, one, you better not be showing up two minutes before your session starts. Like, there's. There's no re. Outside of Austin traffic, which is a thing. There's no reason why you should be just walking in the door just before your. Your client does.

Yeah. And after your client.

Exactly. Even worse. Likely we're gonna have to have different conversation if that's happened. Right. But there is that sense of like, I. I think it's not taken for granted what we do. I don't think this is unique to our profession.

Yeah.

But truly being able to show up and to know that we are doing transformational work, restorative work in the lives of people. And though we. I think RT is an amazing framework for helping us through that process, I think we can still even RT world get very comfortable with. All right. We did our pain and pee cycle. We did our four steps. So what's next? And how we put that back in. But really being able because I. Man, I'm thinking about yesterday. I should be exhausted. A lot of stuff happened yesterday, but it's on the forefront.

It's more.

I remember a client being in yesterday and I couldn't remember her truth words. And I realized that I didn't go back and look at her. My notes on her pain and peace cycle prior to the session. And we're sitting here trying to do some things. And I could not remember her truth word. So I had to go work on my computer and pull it up. And I don't think it bothered her at all, but it made. Just threw off this signal for me of like, wow, did I really. Was I really prepared stepping into the session that I wasn't able to recall and obviously because I hadn't looked at her notes. But. But being prepared is so important in that process and being ready for our clients because I think we definitely are doing that transformational work.

So, absolutely. Yeah. Like, I have Michael, I got a cheat sheet for all my clients. I have, like, on every single one of my clients, I have their genogram, so I know all the characters in the story. Like, I have, like, little secret stories that they've told me along the way that I can always reference back to. And then on the very bottom of my cheat sheet, or on the very top, I have their goals listed. And then on the very bottom, I have their pain and peace cycles all written out so I can. Yeah. I'm telling you, man, I. Cheat sheets are the jam. That's how I got through school. I mean. No, I didn't.

You told you cheated through school?

Oh, no, I actually did not use cheat sheets.

Lance has read all of the RT Cliff Notes. That's why he's so good at this. It's just a reminder to. I mean, there's. There's a lot of areas of growth for me as a therapist. I got it. That's why I like talking to you, too, and to anyone else.

We just.

There's areas I got to grow. Continue to grow as a therapist, and I will have to continue to grow, hopefully. And, you know, I hope that someone who sees me today that I'll be much better if they were to see me 10 years from now. You know, I hope I'm a better therapist, but.

Totally.

Yeah, but it's. Man, I'm. Yeah, it's exhausting. I was thinking just about, you know, your day as a therapist. You had a busy day yesterday, and, you know, trying to figure out a good rhythm for you as a therapist so you can sustain the work that you love to do.

Yeah.

Is challenging, and I'm sure it just comes in different seasons.

It does. There's just a lot happening. But I think it's, you know, yesterday I can think through. It was a busy day. This is. Again, this is the beauty of the work we get to do as RT therapist is being able to do maybe real time. Our own work is literally having to go through my own four steps. I get an email from a client that doesn't like that. I'm didn't say it directly, but doesn't like that I'm changing my rates. Said I don't. The direction you're going. We're not headed basically is what was said, which is fine. Right. But, you know, you get that in your head, and then you start supposed to step into a session with someone. And the beauty of the work we get to do is being able to realize that, hey, that Client's experience doesn't define me or my abilities or any of those things, but we're just as human and that that stuff can be with us. Right? You go and you step in, you're like, wow, you know, feel like I'm showing up for these people, doing those different things. And, you know, then you get. Feel like you're getting a foot in the face about, you know, having to take care of your family. And I think that that's a conversation sometimes that folks don't let us have. Is therapist is that, you know, we are in a helping field. And I think there is this expectation that we're just supposed to give of our time or, you know, we're supposed to always have discounts. But we have families to go home and feed and folks to take care of. We also have to emotionally show up for our families. So we have a full day of seeing clients and helping people, which I will not complain about. I love doing it, but also remembering, hey, we also have to walk through this process too, and stuff that outside of being in a session with a client, you still have to navigate life and the stuff that comes at you in life. And so I think it's. To me, at the end of the day, RT has been a huge help, not only my marriage, but just personally to be able to know, hey, I have to sometimes walk to my four steps before a session, two or three times during a session, a few times after a session. But it's a. It's a tool that not only I think helps our clients, but it has been great help in my own life when life is hitting you and you still have to show up for clients.

Michael, what's the truth that's kind of been that core anchor for you of recent, like when. When you're in your pain cycle.

It's funny you asked that. I've been saying this a lot lately. More than capable and Hill Shepherd. So Hill shepherd is the name that kind of the new name I guess I got when my wife and I did the intensive 14 years ago.

That's right. I really sharing that.

Yeah. So that name my wife probably texted to me very frequently. But more than capable of. Because I think my pain is inadequate and feeling inadequate. And so to have to come back and more than capable of dealing with a spreadsheet, more than capable of speaking to an audience of a couple hundred people or more than like all of those things, is that I can disqualify myself very quickly. You know, Rhett, you mentioned as we're coming off you got a lot happening. And my default is performance. Right.

Do you have my cheat sheet in front of you, Michael?

I think so.

You're more than capable too.

He's got my pain and peace cycle right in front of him. Yeah, yeah.

Performance.

So then. And that, and that performance gets praised by people too. You know, not only us, but there's like, oh, look at how good Michael is doing. Look all the stuff he's doing. All good. I think about Terry's words, which I just, I mean his phrase that a performance based identity is no identity at all.

Right.

I'm like, no, that's not true. Come on, what do you mean?

Let me show you how that's really true.

I'm just like, wow. Yeah, yeah, it's heavy, you know, so leaning into that, I'm more than capable. Or would you say Shepherd?

Healed Shepherd. You are a healed shepherd. I'm thankful. I am thankful for God's healing in your life, bro.

Yes.

And that, you know, even the heart works like stuff, man. I'm.

You are.

You are a treasured voice in the RT community, my friend.

Oh, thank you.

And I, I am so thankful that like, from the first time I got to hear you, I was like, dang, this guy is amazing. So I, I really appreciate you and I'm so looking forward to our years to come of being able to do good work together, man.

Yeah, likewise.

Plus all us Texans are, all us Texans are going to be taking over California here pretty soon in the RT world, so.

Cool.

Watch out, Watch out, Lance.

Yeehaw. Go get them.

Hey, I, I know we gotta go, but I was gonna say here's something that I just gonna plug this and we won't do it this year because there is coming down to an end. But you know, mostly therapists probably listen to us. We should do some episodes together and some other people, we should talk about practice, like just the business of practice, because it is a. Oh yeah. It's a question we all get. I get it all the time. You get it all the time. And I, there's tons I've learned and tons I'm still learning. And I sent Lance an article even this week about Brene Brown talking about her own pivot in terms of therapy and how she moved from this world to that world and how she thinks about therapy and just different stuff going on in the world of therapy. And you know, I want to continue to try to do good work in this place, but we have to think about like what that looks like. And so anyways, put that out there, people listening.

Yeah, we should.

We should do that. We should.

I think that's a great idea.

Let's get on, talk about that and bring some other people on and talk through that. Just the nuts and bolts.

Yeah.

And one last thing I forgot to share is I know there's. With Stephanie and I, we have a level 2 trainings coming up and I think. You have a Level one, or did you just.

January. It's in January.

Yeah. That counts. It's coming close, too.

Wow.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's like two months. Michael Cox is doing a Level one training. Do you want to tell us about it?

Yeah. Level one training, January. Now, they'll have the exact days. 23rd and 24th, I believe it's in January. Level one in person, Austin, technically, Pflugerville. We have it at my church here. So it's a Friday and a Saturday. Level one training coming up.

Yeah. I had one of my therapists fly all the way out to hear Michael Cox and she was just like astounded by how amazing he is from California, so.

Well, you've got an associate of mine in Level two right now.

Oh, cool. Nice.

He's in Houston and I think he said he still needs to schedule like a one on one with you and Terry. We just had supervision last week.

Nice.

But he's loving it. He's loving it.

That's great. Yeah. And we have Level two coming up. I know Stephanie has two slots left and I have one slot left for Level two. Stephanie's is coming up really soon, so check out the website. I don't. I don't have the exact dates, but I know it'll be in the notes. Possibly because Rhett is the man.

Yeah, well, yeah. And so, yeah, we'll put the show notes and we'll put all the links to Michael's podcast and Instagram stuff. And we're excited to hear about this book. And we'll put dates down if they're in there. We'll put links at least to where you can do Level one, Level two training, so. Awesome. All right, well, you guys go out and do good work today.

Likewise. Thanks for listening. See you.

Thanks, Michael.

Just over a week. A week.

See you soon.