Season 1 | Episode 5 | Co-Hosts Lance Ahl & Rhett Smith Discuss Anxiety Intensive Model

Episode 5, Lance of the RT dialogue.

Dude, we did it.

We did it. We made the five episodes.

So, Rhett, you've done like, you're like a mega podcaster.

Don't not even put me in that category.

I mean, you've done hundreds of podcasts, right?

Yeah, but like, let's talk. I think I'm like. I think my personal podcast is like, at 140 episodes, and I've started that in 2015. So that's not like a. A huge rate of production. Well, yeah, and my numbers, I mean, I don't have like a huge audience, but I have an audience that matters.

That is true. I hope our audience is one that matters too.

Yeah. Well, we are five episodes in and this one's going to. Hopefully we'll go hundreds of episodes. But I want to talk about anxiety and specifically anxiety intensive work.

Yeah.

Today. Can we do that?

Let's talk about it, man.

So let's start by first congratulating you, Dr. All.

Oh, stop it.

Tell people what just happened here this last week.

Okay, so, guys, this has been a long, arduous journey for me. I've been working on my doctorate for the formally for the past two years, but I feel like working with Terry and the community for ever since I was at Fuller in 2010.

So.

But yeah, this last week I sat down and I defended my dissertation.

Yes.

In front of Terry Hargrave and Dr. Cedric Williams and amongst others, which is an interesting experience in itself. And they gave me the thumbs up. I passed without revisions.

Nice. And the title of the dissertation?

The title of dissertation is Arresting Anxiety. An Experiential Training Model for Doing Restoration Intensive Therapy. Some.

Yeah. So no, this is good because as you know, we've as a community with RT the last several years, we've been really developing a model for anxiety intensives and meeting and iterating, I guess the process, you would say, among our colleagues and training colleagues in this process. And so I feel like this dissertation is kind of putting a lot of the pieces together in a more written format that will be helpful to us.

Absolutely. I. I really don't think I could have done this dissertation if it wasn't for the work, particularly you, Tanner, Sharon and Terry did well, thanks to.

I don't. I don't even know how this came about. I remember Terry, I want to say 2021, maybe sometime 2020, Terry sent me an email and Sharon did. Asking me about. And anxiety intensive and asked me about my interest in it and if I. What I'd imagine when looking. Looking like, and I remember putting together this huge document of, like, this is how I would organize like a three or four day marriage or not marriage anxiety intensive model. I sent it to them and I didn't hear anything back for a long time. So I thought it was pretty like dead in the water. Which come to think of it, you know, they're just stewing on it, right. Like, thinking through. Through this, taking notes. And so Terry finally said, I think we want to launch this. We got some. A pilot project going, got some money, got some people who could fund it. And we did two pilot projects. And at the Hideaway in 2021, I believe it was January. I gotta look at the dates. I think there was a January and like a June where we had six people come out to the Hideaway, and me, Terry and Tanner initially. And then Sharon came and we just experimented with doing an anxiety intensive and trying to learn the process, basically using the restoration therapy model. Yeah, for. For anxiety, but then adding different tools and techniques. And so most of the weekend was Tanner and I up front on the fireplace doing the work, but Terry in the back with his notebook, taking all these notes.

Yeah.

And then like, all of a sudden he appears out of nowhere and does like, this radical, like, intervention of anxiety when, you know, Tanner and I didn't know where to take it. So that. That's how it kind of took place. And then Sharon there also just processing and giving all the feedback of like, yeah, I think this works. This doesn't work. So that's how it kind of came together. I mean, it. It was. There was definitely a process in place. And then Tanner and I coming to with Terry and Sharon at Windshape in November of 2022 and teaching all of you the model. There was like, how many people in that room that day? It was like 40 something. 30.

This is a big group.

It was a really big group. Yeah. And then everyone. Not everyone, but a lot of you leaving that and launching your own anxiety intensives using kind of the framework that we built. So it's interesting how that's progressed. And you've been like a huge innovator in this area with anxiety, having run your own now anxiety intensives there in Southern California.

Right. Yeah, it's been a. I really like what you guys created. I think this is. It was fun for me as a doctorate student looking at the model and then kind of thinking about, okay, how do we put this in a frame that makes sense? I think a lot of the stuff that y' all created was very much from this intuitive type place.

Yeah.

And like, you know, I think they're obviously good research and everything, but, you know, so it's fun for me as a, you know, doctoral student to be able to play around with it and kind of look, okay, where, how does this fit into the good research that's coming out? So, yeah, it was a blast.

Well, I guess it's like a process of scaffolding kind of. We take, we take a model like RT restoration therapy that has already been tried and true. Lots of people using it, lots of research around it and that's kind of the skeleton that we're going to use for anxiety. And then as we, this word incubate kind of comes to mind. Like as we kind of like incubate that model in this like setting, we're going to try some different things in terms of anxiety interventions that we've all found to be helpful in our private practice and see if that works over a three or four day model. But I don't think it was until coming to talk to you and everyone else that weekend and try to teach it. That's when we got, okay, here's a lot of good feedback. Here's what maybe works, here's what doesn't work. And then you actually take it out into the wild in Southern California with another therapist and test it out and it seems like you come back and say, here's what's working, here's what's not working. So we got this kind of really cool dynamic process going on with people testing out the anxiety intensive model using different things, but built on the restoration therapy.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's that. I mean, that's the great part is we're building on something that's, that already works great, but now we're, you know, it's kind of been playing, playing around with a customization of a model, you know, like, how do you customize this? We've done customization for the area like I would say like the couples intensives would be a customization. Right. Where we've optimized restoration therapy to work with couples. Right. And you know, the anxiety is just the next iteration of customization. Yeah.

And I would imagine we're still going to be testing this out for a while and trying new things. So I'm curious. Several years in now. So we're at least. Oh man, four years, three and a half years into like kind of starting the initial groundwork, I guess with this. What, what, what have we learned, you think, about anxiety in the intensive model? Like what Works for anxiety. What's not working for anxiety?

Yeah. You know, one of the things I found really interesting was pairing the work of what. What y' all created. Um, we. I guess one of the things we realized is there's times where the four steps just ain't hitting it right.

Yeah.

And you'll have that client and, you know, they'll say, yeah, I did that. I didn't do anything. So I think that was kind of this. This difficult thing that we kept on struggling with. And I think we. We kept on asking, well, how do we slow down? Right. Because that's what seems what happens is with anxiety, it's just so fast. Right. So how do we slow it down? Like, how do we stop the badness? Right. The proverbial. Is there an off ramp here? You know?

Yeah.

There a way to change tracks and make this switch around? So, yeah, I think that that's kind of the. The part that started everything was like, how do we stop the madness?

Well, and that's when Terry, I think, probably at the second intensive, stood up in the back of the room, and he all of a sudden declared, stop, turn, slow.

Yeah.

As like an intervention. And that's because he was sitting back and watching and going. He was really analyzing. I'm watching these guys work. And this is working, or this is not working in the room. And so he kind of developed this model of stop, turn, slow. And you talk about that in your dissertation, correct?

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So stop, turn, slow. Okay, so let me talk quickly about polyvagal theory. Have you done much work with polyvagal?

I mean, I probably know enough to be dangerous.

Yes.

I know enough to understand it, talk about it. But I don't. I wouldn't say. I practice out of that. So tell me about it.

So polyvagal is just a theory on what happens inside the brain. Right. And it kind of looks at this. That cranial nerve X that we talk about called the vagus nerve, or when you're using it as an adjective, which I found out, the vagal nerve, that the way that this nerve works is it has these, like, three different layers to it. And the way to help people is to work. There's, like a pathway out. Right. So at our normal state, where everything's good and going wonderful, we have. We're in what's called the ventral vagal state. Right. Ventral vagal state. That's that creative. Like, you know, we have good mojo. We can talk, we can. We can play. All those things can happen. And, you know, that That's. That's where we like to be. That's where we're trying to take people with the pain and peace cycle, right? When you go through your four steps, you're right there. That's when you're. That gives you more access to your ventral vagal. Now one step down is where we start hitting reactivity, right? That's when a stimulus comes in to our system and what's called our autonomic nervous system ans for those that like to breathe, comes in. And that's the fight or flight. That's where the fight or flight comes in, right? And that's where we're. Our dukes are up and we're ready to go, or we're trying to get out of dodge. And that's where blood's flowing all to the. To your body to do those types of things. Well, polyvagal theory looked at things and said, okay, that's interesting. But there's this other stage that happens inside of people called the dorsal vagal state. And dorsal vagal state is where your blood does the exact opposite. From going from your extremities to going straight into your heart. And your body's preparing to die, right? That's like, you know, you're, You're. You don't have control over your body anymore. You're. You don't have that state of movement. And it can come out in two different ways. One is in this really frenetic anxiety way where it's just kind of wild all over the place, but doesn't really have a place to land. Or it can just be like that person's completely shut down. And I think what we did or what you guys did with putting together these anxiety intensives is you are working to help out. How do we help out this person when they're in the dorsal vagal state, right? Where that. Where that part has taken over their system. And so the best way to deal with it, you know, there's this saying, if you ever read body keeps the score, you know, working up. Right? Right.

Yeah. Y.

So if I can calm my body, I can tell my body to calm my brain. And that's where the stop comes in, right? That's where we do the breathing tech technique, the huberman technique, you know, the physiological sigh.

So, yeah, so you talk about this in dissertation, the polybagal stuff. Yeah. And so walk me through. So if somebody. And let's just put this in the context of like an anxiety intensive. People are coming because they have anxiety. And, you know, I think most people we worked with too, had. Well, I think we found that most people came. Most people who came to the intensives had anxiety that we could help do interventions on and help manage through tools. There are some people, like, it was much more clear, probably needed some stronger type of intervention or some type of treatment. But Right. For a person with. Let's just say. Oh, gosh, I don't want to use the right word. Your typical anxiety that comes into a therapy office. How does the top stop Turner slow help them? Like, and put it like, I'm tracking with the polyvagal. But put it in like really simple terms, like, what is it actually doing to me and my body to help me regulate my anxiety?

So what happens is when we're. When we're totally triggering our anxiety, that's where everything's just going. Yeah, frenetic. And then like classically, what we do as therapists, which has been really funny to me just thinking about this post haste is like, we want to process the anxiety with people.

Yeah.

And we're trying to figure out why they're so anxious and what's going on. And what we're discovering is that's really not helpful. So we want to stop it as soon as possible.

So stop the. Stop the processing right now. Just have them. Have them stop what they're doing. Yeah, just stop.

Right. No, it does not help. It does not work. Can you hear the laughing in the background?

No, I can't. Who's laughing at you?

My daughter and. And Jennifer are having like a freaking back there.

You're like, I want to go join. Forget this polyvagal stuff.

But anyways. Yeah. So the. What we're doing with the stop is. Remember how we talked about the body? Like we had to get to the body first.

Yeah.

So we. We don't want to like, go thoughts. That's not going to be helpful. So that's where we want to teach them how to breathe. That's the stop. Right.

So we stop and then teach them how to breathe. Right.

And there's two options. I like to give two options with the stop. Classically, we just do breathing. That's. That works great. The other thing we can do is bilateral stimulation, which is. Would be like throwing a ball back and forth between your hands or swaying back and forth.

Right. I have my office these balls. Sometimes I'll just give a client and they'll just start tossing it back and forth.

Yeah. Isn't it great?

Yeah. And then, though Huberman did not invent it. I think we talk about him a Lot. Because he has kind of popularized it again. Right. On his podcast and stuff. The physiological side is that quick double inhale through the nose. Right. Pause and then exhale through the mouth.

Yes.

And we find that you can probably explain this better. What is it about that double quick inhale, pause. The double quick inhale through the nose, pause and then breathe the mouth. That. That triggers something in the brain that kind of helps us hit calm.

Yeah. So there's a lot of things that happen, like with that double inhale, the first breath, you want it to fill up your upper lungs. Right. So that's. That's. That first breath is, like, upper lung. You're going to fill up. And when you do that, that allows your heart to relax. Right. So that. That's where you. That first breath, like, kind of puts your heart in a cradle mode. Right. And there's all these neurons that are right there in your heart. So that's great for your heart. Just kind of says, all right, something different's happening.

Right. Yep.

And then that next big breath in that hold, what that does is it expresses all the. I'm gonna mess up the word, but it's like the. There's like the. In our lungs, we have all these little sacs inside of them. What are they called?

I don't know, but I'm going with you on it. I know it's there.

Yeah. I have a. I'll get my doctor friend to tell me later. Medical doctor friend. It expresses all the carbon dioxide that's in our system. Right. Carbon dioxide can just rest in there. So if you get in a good breath, it actually expresses all the carbon dioxide inside of your lungs that are in that. Those little sacks. And then, like, holding it, that's expressing. And then that slow breath out.

Right.

That. That allows for your body to kind of do that. Finish the reset.

Yeah. And Dr. Human on. On. There's a. There's a link. I like to show him practicing it. And he's on the Tim Ferriss podcast when he does this. There's a link. I send clients a lot because sometimes they want to, like, just see it observed. Also, he talks about. That's what you see sometimes when a dog is sleeping and takes this, like, double breath. Like.

Yeah.

To calm himself down. Or when a baby's crying, the baby will be like. Or a kid, they'll be like. They'll take, like, this quick, like, double in hell. And so kids are, like, instinctively already doing this. Yeah, there you go. So, okay, so the first move is we want to just Stop the anxiety. Full send. Get them to do some kind of bilateral stimulation or move into a breathing.

Exercise as fast as possible.

Yeah. Okay, so that's the stop. What's the turn?

Okay, the turn. This is where you're talking about Terry coming from the back of the room.

Yeah.

He's got this big chart.

Got it.

And what we do with the turn is it's. It's this process of looking at what's going on inside of you and just naming the one thing. So we would name the trap. Right. And the trap would be that core word that's being, you know, activated with your anxiety. Right. So we would look at it, you know, is this like an external or internal thing? Like, is this. Is there someone out there saying something or is there something going inside of me that's. That's saying something? Is this something about my safety? You know, do I feel like I'm safety being hurt, or do I feel like it's my identity that's being hurt?

So the turn is the one thing going on inside of them. And what we want to do is connect it to. Is it a sense of safety or identity?

Yeah.

Happening. So love or trust, right. In the restoration therapy model. And is this an external threat or an internal. Yeah, threat or an external message. Or internal message. Is that correct?

Absolutely. Yeah. So we're looking at that. There's this whole, you know, Terry's got this document. I think it's still in process.

Yeah.

As far as what the final. You're actually doing it with them, so you probably know more about how it's going to end up.

No, I. I don't. I mean, this is. This is the beauty. I think this is why we're talking about today is that a lot of us are iterating this process along the way and learning. Because this is relatively new. There aren't a lot of anxiety intensives around the country, if any, that I know of. And so we're all trying different things out and practicing them. And so why is that important, though, identifying that trap and naming it?

Yeah. So naming the trap, what that does is instead of working the anxiety part of things, where the ruminations kind of will spill one over another, over another, over another. What happens is we're just saying it's just you. Right? Right. I see you. Rejection. Right. I see you staring at me. Rejection. And. And once we name it, then we want to do the turn. Right. And the turn is to say, look, rejection. I see you over there. I'm going to lean in on. I am A loved guy. I. I know people love me. I know people care about me. So it's like a. And you literally want to turn them, if possible, in the room.

Yeah. Like a physical kind of move the other direction.

Yeah. Like, if you have it on a board, have them name it at. At the board, and then have them look straight in your eyes. Right. Like, look at me now. Say it. Say. Say the truth. Right. Say that thing that's going to help you right now.

Now, this is where some confusion actually came in as we, like, process this as a team. And I think at the training. Are we talking. Are we naming the four steps here at this point, or are we not? What's happening at the turn piece?

I'd say it's like. It's like a soft version of the four steps.

Yeah.

It does get really confusing. When you've done restoration therapy, what I can tell you is your clients will not know any difference.

Yeah.

And I think that's really important for us to know. Like, your clients will just lean in on what the intervention you're teaching them.

Yeah.

And it's a little bit confusing for us because there is kind of like marrying them together. It's like, you know, I feel like, stop, turn, slow. Like, if you're for reading the Bible, it's like going through Mark, you know, it's like, boom. Like, it's really quick, you know, rapid.

Pace, one thing to the next.

Yes, yes. Versus going through, you know, the Gospel of John or Matthew.

Yeah.

Oh, you see, this was because of this. Which now. Yeah.

So. Okay, I want to. Let's track this again. So anxieties hit.

Yep.

First intervention as part of this model is the stop, turn. Slow is to stop, stop. What we're doing, we're gonna. We're gonna have a person do a breathing exercise or some type of bi. Bilateral stimulation just to stop the frenetic anxiety pace. And then we're gonna move towards turn.

Yes.

And that may be even physically positioning them, turning them in a different direction.

Yeah.

And part of that turn is identifying where. Where it's coming from. The. What do you call it? The core.

Yeah, that core thing that's being triggered like that. That activation thing. What's activating you right now. Yeah. And as a.

As a therapist, you're. Are you helping. You're helping them identify that you're saying.

Yeah, the possible. Name one. Yeah, name one. Okay, now turn and say the truth about yourself.

Okay.

Or the situation.

And then there's slow. What is that?

Okay, slow. This is where, for me like when we're looking at the polyvagal theory, this is like we're. We're climbing the ladder slowly. Okay, so we're at the bottom with that dorsal vagal. Now we're climbing up. We're in that, you know, autonomic nervous system, working that whole thing. And now we're at the ventral vagal. Right. And we're giving them permission to move into a different world to, to in the slow. What they do is like, what are those healthy things that you can do for yourself right now?

Like in that moment?

Yeah.

Like give me an example. I'm in therapy with you. You. I have anxiety. I've already stopped. I've. I've been breathing. I've identified the threat. Okay. Now what does slow look like in the context of my office?

Yeah, so the slow in the context of your office would be like, okay, so what are things I can do? What's the next right step I can do right now? Instead of going big with everything, like, what's the thing I can do for myself right now? Maybe I can go take a walk. You know, maybe I'll.

This might be after session when I leave this office or take a walk in session. You're saying.

Yeah, yeah. It's kind of a walk together.

Okay.

Or maybe you have them. Hey, you know what? You just talked about how you're accepted, right?

Yeah.

Name three of your close friends that, that when you're with them, that you feel really accepted. If I asked you that, Rhett, who would you name?

Oh, well, excusing yourself, which I do feel accepted by you, I would. Yeah. I mean, my brother in law, Drew Samson. Oh, I'll say offhand, who you know.

Yeah.

My wife Heather, you know, who is not only my, my partner, but my friend.

Dude.

And I'm gonna just save my kids, Hudson and Hayden. And you that I. I'm thankful to say. That list is long, by the way. I could have like rattled off like 50 people right now, probably, to be honest with you. So I'm very thankful for that. But, dude. Yeah, those are like a few right there.

And when you bring them in the room with you right now, what happens to your anxiety?

Well, I'm smiling, so my anx. I don't feel as anxious.

It's amazing, right?

Yeah. I mean, I was just sitting thinking, man, how lucky am I to have so many people in my life that accept me for who I am?

Dude, Seriously.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, man. So yeah, in the room, literally, you just brought that person into like a different experience by Slowing them down.

Absolutely. That's the gift to stop, turn, slow.

Yeah.

They call it climbing the ladder. You know, we call it. Well, and you just getting off.

Yeah. Sorry I'm talking over you because I'm so excited. You just, like, reframe the anxiety for them, really.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think going back, I think this is one of the core things is anxiety is what you do, Right.

Yeah.

Anxiety isn't what you feel. Right.

And yeah. I don't know when Terry. I first heard that, but it changed my life. And it may have been after even he had me speak on anxiety at Pepperdine, on anxiety and fear. And, you know, thankful for him to give me an opportunity when I still didn't know very much. And he, you know, he allows us in the community to do the work. And I think. But I feel like at that retreat or that conference, he may have shared, I think maybe before, I don't remember, but he said anxiety is. Anxiety is something you do. Like, it's not a feeling. Yeah. I think we could. We could debate on it being like a secondary feeling, have some, Some components of that, but I literally do anxiety instead. I be. I become anxiety. It's, it's. It's. That flipped everything because instead of just managing anxiety, then as a symptom, it gives us opportunity as restoration therapists to get below the surface and identify the core underlying feeling that brings about anxiety in our lives. Right?

Oh, totally. That's. And that's the major shift. And this is like at the anxiety intensives, it's amazing because you'll be doing stop, turn slow with your clients and they'll all be around, like, because we do it with a group. That's one of the beauties of, of this is like, so they'll be working and they're like, rejection. Like, I have nothing I can do with this rejection. And then you have the group there and you would say, well, what do you guys think? How would you handle this? Right.

Yeah.

And then all of a sudden you're giving them a new option and like, oh, I can do this. So you're creating a new link for them to be able to break out of that anxiety when it hits them.

Yeah. I was thinking all the years I spent trying to manage my anxiety before I learned, oh, my anxiety is really about me not feeling adequate or good enough and addressing that. Those feelings, those core issues is what heals the anxiety.

Right.

But you have this intervention Stop, Turn Slow. And it sounds like too. I'm just wanna play this out after the Client leaves the room, their next best thing may be to go home and go, I don't know, go for a walk or have a conversation with a friend. Like, that's the slowing down, right?

That's that creative piece where the ventral vagal is playing. Like, that's. And. And then by having them practice it with you in the room.

Yeah.

You can see, kind of like when you gave me that smile, I knew we were on the right pathway. Right?

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

I mean, thinking about Drew Sams instantly does that for me. Anyways.

Yeah. He's good friends of both of us. Obviously.

I have to tell you the Unleashed story one day, but.

Oh, man.

Yeah.

I mean, but that's surfing context, by the way. Unleashed.

Unleashed.

It sounds like some kind of crazy. Drew Sam's unleashed, Lance. All unleashed. What. Where do you see all this going? What's your hope right now with. Okay, you just finished your doctorate. You have. You've been working hard on the anxiety, like intensive, and the model and the polyvagal model and how that fits into RT and this intervention of stop, turn, slow. What are your hopes?

I mean, my. My hope is that. You mean, Restoration therapy is such a great model for doing intensive work, and I think my hope is to train a lot more therapists to be able to do this in their therapeutic settings. You know, the more that they know how to do it, the more that they get reps, um, the. The better that is for, you know, everybody. Right.

You. You want to train them how to have anxiety interventions using the RT and stop, turn, slow, like in the room. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. Yeah. Whether it's. And I mean, obviously my dissertation was all about doing intensives.

Yeah.

We talked about, you know, there's. There's lots of other fun things that, That I was researching while doing it, but like, um, my. My hope for where we go from here is. Is to take this. And you know, Terry and he. He always calls it a postage stamps therapy, which to me is, you know, his humility, you know, but for someone that's been changed by it, I want everybody to know about this. So hope is that this therapy that when people experience, they will look at you and they've been like, I've been going to therapy for the past 12 years.

Yeah.

What we did in these past four sessions is way more than that.

Yeah. Well. And you have a real passion, too, I think. I think you love the intensive work. You love that model of three or four days, don't you?

One day. You know, I just Did a one day intensive this last Friday. It was so much fun.

Why do you think intensives are so hard to get going? And launched, you know, whether it's an anxiety intensive or a marriage or some kind of intensive. What, what is it about an intensive you think is so hard just to actual. Because there's not many around you. And I've talked about this. There's not that. There's not a lot of availability. So what is it? Why is they so hard to find and to put up to pull off?

Well, I think the big thing that really gets in the way is we have bought into this idea that therapy happens in a 50 minute chunk.

Yeah.

And insurance companies reverse reimburse at a 50 minute chunk. So I think it's hard to like get going because that's kind of the model that's been handed to us. I mean, Sigmund Freud, he used to meet in people's houses and really connect with people. You do like three and four hours at a person's house and then eventually he set up his own office and he decided, oh, why don't you just come into my office and meet with me for an hour every day and we'll call it good. And then he kind of set his schedule that way and we've been following ever since. Yeah, it's just kind of like, oh, I guess that's just the way we do things.

Yeah, it's hard to. It's hard to get a therapist like all of us who are in therapy. It's hard to sometimes find that three or four days to be away to.

Oh yeah.

To give. There's, there's logistical piece. It's hard for a client to invest in that. An investment could be a financial piece or just emotional like I got to be gone for four days. They got to figure out kids and work. So it's hard. It's hard logistically, but it. You're. There is something really powerful that happens when you give three or four days just to focus on something.

It does make a difference. Yeah, I. Yeah, I mean ob. Honestly. Yeah. There's. To get away. We live in the culture of busy right now.

So.

Yeah, it's hard for us to give up an hour, much less, you know, a whole day. But you know, it's a big priority thing. We have to really, you know, teach people the benefits.

Yeah. So you're. Yeah, I'm just excited about this. This I'm excited to see because I know you've been spending a lot of time writing and like behind the scenes. With dissertation. And now. Now it feels like you finish that now you can have the energy to take what you've learned and been practicing and like put it in real time. It sounds like with your team that you're working with and with people and with clients and part of the RT community.

Yeah, we got a bunch of intensives coming up, you know, turning from anxiety, website, kind of post a bunch of them. We just had one this a few weeks ago, and we have two coming up this spring. So, yeah, it's a lot to look forward to. And, you know, I think the part that just keeps on motivating me is just that knowing it works, you know?

Yeah.

Just being wrapped for so many years and then all of a sudden you go and you're. You come back a different person.

And, you know, this is called the RT dialogue. So we're going to talk about it a lot, and it's obviously changed you and I, our lives personally and countless others. But what I do love is how everything builds on each other, you know, so, you know, you just finished a dissertation about the anxiety intensive model, and that happened because Terry and Sharon several years ago thought, hey, Rhett Tanner, what do you think about maybe an intensive? And then Terry, when he gets up and talks about, stop, turn slow, he names Stephanie. How came this idea of the off ramp? Yeah, right. Which goes back to the RT dialogue you guys all had, I don't know, how many years ago, 2015, maybe.

It was a while back.

Yeah. So I. I just love that there's bits and pieces from different people. And the more we're in community, this. It becomes this kind of cohesive whole.

Yeah.

And anybody is allowed to have a voice and an opinion in this community and try different things on. Like, you and I don't have all the answers. Terry and Sharon would be the first to say that they don't either.

Right.

They'd be like, try it on. Let's see how it works.

Yeah. What's the next customization? Right.

Yeah. So there are people out there listening who maybe want to try something with the RT model and customize it. And what we would say is go for it. Like, we might all learn something from it.

Yeah. Yeah. I think there's. I mean, obviously we have our core tenets of restoration theory, correct.

Yes.

Always going to hold on to. But yeah, like, what would this look like, you know, to ask that question, like, how do we take this in a spiritual direction? You know, how do we take this? I love that. Megan's Ekin, which we're Going to have on eventually. She's like, how do we do this in a coaching environment? You know.

Correct.

So there's so movement.

Yeah. We should. We have the pain and peace cycle. We got the four steps and the. The core. Theoretical foundations. Those are built on, which are essential.

Yeah.

To us. But. But it gives us an anchor to have some freedom to kind of. To, you know. What's the word? Drift off a little bit.

Yeah.

From the core and try some different things. Swim out into the waters, test some things out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Knowing. Knowing we're not going to go too far. But we're gonna. But we're always guiding people back to the joy of being restored, you know?

Stop, turn slow. So good. Yeah.

Dude, Rhett, I think you got a therapy appointment coming up.

Yeah, I do. And, you know, like, a little earlier, I saw the door crack open behind you. Your daughter's probably, like, wondering if you. You're going to come out and join the laugh party.

Yes, I. Yeah, they got My Little Pony going, so I think it's time for me to buck up.

Well, and, you know, let's close with this. Like, I think one of our hopes, like I said, it's only the fifth episode. We're going to record a lot more. You and I hope someday, as much as we love this too, other people come on and be the co host for another season.

Yeah.

But one of the things I love about this is I knew I was hopping on a call with you today, and in a session earlier today, I was thinking, I'm going to try an intervention in the room, knowing I'm going to be talking to Lance later, and I can kind of process it with him. So I think the RT community is community that desires to grow and to say, we don't have it all figured out. We're still learning. We got tons of growth to do. We all can be better therapists than we already. Than hopefully we think we are. Of course.

Totally.

So I don't know. That's what. That's what excites me. So knowing you're gonna challenge me and push me and other people in the community are like, hey, maybe you should try it this way. What do you think?

Yeah, I think that's the beauty of what we just did. I mean, you came in, you started out talking about anxiety. You and Terry had a dialogue about it. You created, like, a really awesome pilot. And now I took it and played around with it, and guess what? There's going to be more people playing around with it till.

Yeah.

Kingdom come.

Yeah. It's awesome.

Yeah.

All right, man. You and I could talk forever. We'll be talking soon and be seeing you at the summit in a couple of weeks.

Yeah, baby. It's going to be awesome. Much love.

It'll be awesome. Take care, man.

Take care.