Season 1 | Episode 7 | Special Guest, RT Therapist and Author of The MIndful Marriage, Ron Deal

Foreign.

What's going on, Rhett?

What's up, man? I'm excited today to have Ron on the podcast, dude.

I feel like, you know, we. We had to do a lot of work to get here, but today we're super blessed to have Ron with us.

Man, I am so excited to be with you guys. Can I just jump in and say how excited I am? And let me tell you why, because you're my peeps. I mean, I don't get to hang with RT people very often, and when I met you guys face to face not long ago at the RT summit, I just, like, these are people I want to hang with. And then. And then I dove into your podcast. This podcast, and I've been listening like crazy over the last few days, and love the conversations, and it pulled me in and got me so energized, and I'm like, if somebody's listening right now and this is the first time, you got to go all the way back, listen to them, talk to Michael and Nicole and Monica. All great conversations. Wow.

I mean, yeah, I've been loving it. No pressure.

Well, hey, today's downhill.

Well, Lance and I are finding our footing together, but if it's. If it can't be fun, you shouldn't be doing it, you know, so.

That's right.

We love having deep conversations with people and also just enjoying the fellowship with people as well.

Yeah, yeah.

And. And, Rod, we're so thankful for you. I mean, this is. What you've given to the RT community is such a beautiful gift. With the new book, which we're going to talk about, the mindful marriage, we're super stoked. I love your vulnerability throughout the book. Just. I mean, I. I felt gripped so many times just imagining. I mean, gosh, your story is such a. I'm just glad that you're using your story for good. And it's such a painful thing that you went through and even kind of. I don't know about anybody else that gets lost in their work, but I really appreciate just. Just all the. All those elements, and I think you introduced some really cool stuff to restoration therapy. So today's gonna be a fun day, but so stoked to be able to talk through some stuff today. How about you, Rhett? Yeah, I. I want to start with.

The story, and I've told Ron this story, but I don't know if the audience. They probably haven't heard. Obviously, a few of you have. So, Ron, back at the summit in Amarillo, the end of February, we're sitting in that Big lecture hall, and you're giving a talk on blended families, and you have all these amazing, beautiful graphs and, like, the craziness of family genograms is all going. And I'm watching that play out. And at some point during your presentation, maybe like 40 minutes in, I think to myself, I grew up in a blended family, and I did not know that, and I won't get into all the details, but my mom died when I was 11. My dad remarried when I was 16 to a woman who had never been married, didn't never had any kids, ended in divorce. He got married again to a woman who had been divorced for 20 years, had no kids. You know who. They've been married now, you know, 26, 27 years. And so there were things that never made me think I grew up in a blended family. And so I start texting the, like the committee members for rt. So that's Lance and Dee and Nicole and Megan and Stephanie and Tanner. And I'm like, guys, I grew up in a blended family and didn't know this. And it's pretty quiet. And so I'm thinking, all my colleagues think, what kind of therapist are you? You have no idea. And then two more of them replied, I didn't know either. Ron was talking that I grew up in a blended family also. And so I just want to share that story because I'm still trying to unpack. What does that mean? Yeah, you know, I have some thoughts on that, but, you know, you're the expert on blended family, so I'm just going to want to start there and just curious of how. I don't know how you think about that and the work that you do.

Yeah, and I was so glad you shared that with me. And you're not the only one. I mean, it's actually that happens on a regular basis and it's a bit surprising to me, but at the same time, I sort of really understand why and what this is about. It's actually helpful to our listener because. Because this is one of the core issues that people in blended families and couples that are forming blended families are facing is who are we, you know, creating family ness and identity, if you will. Let's take the identity stuff that comes from love and a safe relationship. That identity is something you create as a blended family. It's not something you're born with or born into. In other words, it's a journey to find how we fit as people, as family members with one another. So you're trying to have this collective family identity and within that, each individual has their own journey into that experience. What does it mean for me? What does this say about who I am? How am I connected to these people? I know I'm deeply attached, connected, DNA deep with my biological mom, my biological dad, my biological siblings, my. But how now am I connected to these step people? And do I like them? Will I love them? Do I feel safe with them? Those are all the pressing questions that the family is facing from the moment the couple gets married. And it is a journey into that space. Generally speaking, we say five to seven years for most families to find a sense of family ness. That doesn't mean every individual feels entirely harmonious and comfortable with every other individual within that family system. But there's some level of connection, some level of family identity that's been born. And that generally takes years, not months, not days, not hours. And so that's sort of the question. You just never quite saw yourself fitting into that. Here's the other example that I hear all the time. And it's a later life couple. So imagine somebody who was married, I got good friends. He was married 30 years, she was married 25 years. Both their spouses passed away, his from cancer, hers from a heart attack. And then they discover each other. They have adult children, so they're empty nests. So in their mind, this isn't going to affect my kids. They have their own lives, they have their own children. And so they get married thinking, yeah, it's just us. Coupleness is all that's important here. But little do they realize that there's immediate ripples through the generations. Their adult children and their grandchildren now step grandchildren. And everybody is impacted by that couple's new relationship and the questions that it raises for everybody else. Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute. You're my mom's husband. Like, who are you to me? See, that's an identity question. Who are you to me and how do I respond to you? And what implication is there that my mom, who was frugal with money our entire life and always was, she and dad didn't have much. Well, now she's spending money like crazy on this new guy and they're going on trips and they're doing, what about me and the grandkids? You know, mom, have you forgotten? Like, those are impressing questions of identity, worth value. Am I safe with this man? I'm not going to call him my dad. He's certainly not my stepdad. I'm 35. I don't need a dad. He's mom's new Husband. Well, that seems to offend my mom, that I call him that. Mom loves him. You can just see how quickly all of the, the agendas and the needs of the adults, the parents, the top generation, the middle generation, the lower generation, the grandchildren, they all collide at some level. And therein lies the rub. Who are we to one another and how are we going to do this? And so people sort of distance themselves from that dynamic naturally and don't define themselves as being part of a step family. That's mom's new husband. That doesn't mean anything about me. And so therein is the. Oh, I didn't realize that that was the context in which I am trying to do life. I'm part of a blended family.

Yeah, that identity piece is so huge. And then we also have the whole safety factors that are going on. Right. You know?

Right, right.

Predictability. Like things that used to happen all the time aren't happening all the time. You know, when you have balance of give and take, oh, man, things aren't fair anymore. You know, have to. I think you're. I loved your triangle discussion around, like, how do you work, you know, the child dynamic and the. And the new wife dynamic or new spouse dynamic. And so like that fairness gets really played out. And that was such a beautiful. I think. Is that originally from your Five Love Languages book or.

Well, no, I think probably goes back to the Smart Step Family, the original book that I wrote. But yeah, there's different elements in. We've got nine books now that we've written for blended families and covering the stepmom role, the stepdad role, everything in between from the time they're dating. I've got a whole book on dating to a book on premarital counseling for helping couples get ready for the wedding once they're engaged to. Now that you're married, how do you do this? And what are all the ins and the outs, the ups and the downs? One last thought about that whole identity piece is, you know, I think I shared at the summit, Andrew Sherlin, who's pretty notable sociologist, said stepfamilies are an incomplete institution. Meaning there's just not a lot of social norms about what it is, how it is, how it works. You walk up to the average person, I would dare say, you walk up to the average clinician and say, tell me three things that are different about step parenting than being a biological parent. And most people just don't have that on hand. They don't have a ready working knowledge of how step family living is different. Upside down. In some ways, what those competing attachments look like day in and day out, they just can't give words to it. And so if you can't put words on it, you're not even sure if it's you. You're not even sure when you're a part of one. And if you didn't choose it, Rhett, in your story, you didn't choose it, but your dad chose other relationships, then it's sort of one step removed from me. And it's not my decision to become part of this. It was his decision to bring me into this. Well, that doesn't mean that it's my family. Do you see how that you can keep yourself emotionally, psychologically distant from that new reality? And therefore, I don't live in a step family. Yeah.

In the. In the. The re. Like, the reality hit when we had kids, and the first Mother's Day came along, and my wife talking about Mother's Day gifts.

Yep.

For my. For my stepmom, Rita, who is an amazing woman. And I'm like, wait, what do you mean, mother's Day? Like, I don't have a mother. What are we doing Mother's Day? And she's like, well, these are.

There it is.

Wife. This is. These. These are your kids. Kids, Grandma. This is all they know. This is their grandma. There is no other step grandma. Nothing. I was like, oh. Like, it just didn't even dawn on me. And I think I came back from the summit a little overwhelmed, but in a. Like, in a positive way, because it expanded my view of, like, I really do work with step families every day to some capacity, but I never classified them as a step family, and I didn't think of myself as, like, that expert with step families. And then I realized I don't really have the luxury.

That's right.

To be the guy who's like, well, I'm not the step family guy. I actually need to broaden my capacity to work with all these families coming into my office day in and day out who are, for the most part, in step families in our culture today. It feels like, at least.

Rhett, I would say, a large percentage of your clientele, whether you realize it or not, is part of a larger step family system. When I say larger, I mean, I think of step families as tall and wide. You know, generationally tall. There's two or three generations that are impacted by the step relationships, and they're wide because their children are often moving between different households, sometimes two or three or four different households. Every person in that expanded step family system is technically part of a step family, whether they realize it or not. And so it's really helpful when you begin to see that in their world because if they don't see it in themselves, they're not asking the right questions. You're not able to even help them. Sometimes it's us that brings up. So your kids move to their dad's house a week at a time and then they're back at your house. Tell me how that goes. Well, they didn't come in going, yeah, I need to talk about this. But the minute you bring it up as something that triggers their pain cycle, then all of a sudden you go, oh, this is extremely relevant to what we've been talking about or what we need to talk about, because it involves a relationship that has, is ripe with pain. Your ex spouse that had that all come apart, what's it like day in and day out, trying to cooperate with the man who abandoned you or left you or whatever. That's ongoing pain that ripples into their pain cycle. Today that's not about the past, that's about today.

Yeah. So, right.

In the meantime, Ron, I just sent him to your website.

Well, great. We appreciate that.

Yeah, I, I definitely want to make sure I, I want to make sure we get to talk about mindful marriage. But I do want to just. Can we just hang out here just a tiny bit?

Yeah, yeah. In fact, let me jump in before you ask another question because I really want to get this in there. I'm building a list of therapists who are doing their homework about step families. And we're referring people out left and right around the country. I've only been doing this for about three or four years and so the list is small. If you want to get in, now's the time to get in. A couple times a year, I do a 12 hour virtual training on step family therapy. The next one's coming up May 22nd, 23rd, 2025. If you miss it, we'll do it again. It's live. It's not recorded. I do it live every time, usually a small group of people. And we're going to just spend two days camping out in this whole step family therapy arena and applying some RT principles in that space as well. But then raising your awareness about those inner workings and dynamics. And if you go through that 12 hour training, you get on our list, our referral list for life. Okay. There's no annual fee, there's none of that kind of stuff on the back end. You just pay Go through the training on the upfront, and then you're in forever. I want a growing list of competent people who are able to help. And of course, I think RT people have a huge running start on their ability to be able to intervene. But it's really helpful if you get the other layers that are adding to the pain cycles that people are living. And so May 22nd, 23rd, how many.

Times a year do you picture yourself doing that? Like you think you'll be doing training?

I've been trying to do it twice a year, and I've done it three times, a couple of times. But twice is kind of a good rhythm for me.

We'll make sure we got those dates. And your website resources in the. In the show notes, for sure.

Yeah. Smartstepfamilies.com is where you go. Smartstepfamilies.com you can find everything that we've got going at that website.

Yeah, you've created a whole bevy of smart, like getting really smart there. I'm really impressed. And I think you're hitting a lot of the. Because it's such a big issue that comes in, I think I would say, like, at least 90% of my clients probably have come from that place. And then with the presenting issue, I'd say it's like the fourth most common issue that comes in. My office is around that.

And, you know, I mean, pain gets entrenched, right? So imagine you're a kid and you're growing up and mom and dad divorced, and you live between two households, and there's some ongoing anger and bitterness between them. And so you're learning how to navigate all the adults in your world and be the peacekeeper. And you've also learned you can't rely on things to be there for you. Trustworthiness has been called into question, and so there's a little residue on your heart, and you carry that into your first relationship. She thinks you're cute until she doesn't, and then she breaks up with you. And there you go again. You've learned that. So then you get married. And I was interviewing a guy recently. I do a podcast called Family Life Blended. I run a department for a Christian ministry called Family Life Blended, and that's the name of our podcast. And just this last week, I interviewed a guy who's a pastor. And because of the similar narrative to what I was just telling you, he gets married at 25. He's been through seminary, and his full expectation is his wife will leave him within three years because all the other people in his life have done that. Marriage is come and go. And that was his full expectation. Even as a Christian man who believes in the institution of marriage. Yeah, this will come to an end. And it's only then when he gets married that he begins to realize how much residue is on his heart. And so he has to begin to backtrack and do his work. And again, it gets entrenched in us when the narrative over and over and over again is people are not safe, Relationships are not safe. You can't trust them. And that changes who you are. I don't care how intelligent you are. I don't care what kind of Christian belief system you are. That seeps out of us. Even the best people, all of us are affected by that. That's certainly my life as well. So that background and that past does influence how we do relationships in the present. So they may not be walking in with a step family story, as in, he's in a first marriage, he's got two kids, he's in a biological family unit, but his narrative is deeply rooted in the blended family story. Yeah.

So, so true. And it's just. Think about that pastor, you know, just coming in. You know, it's such a weird, like, disconnect for a person. Like, I totally believe in marriage, and yet I know for me, and this is. I think this is where we get so locked in our pain cycles is. I know for me, it just doesn't work, you know, and, you know, I think this is so key. So I'm really thankful, Ron, that you've kind of moved into this. So, Rob, why don't you tell us a little bit about how you come into restoration therapy? You know, I really appreciate, you know, the mindful marriage, but how about we get us started about, like, even your journey into restoration therapy? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's a good time for any Terry stories, too.

Yeah, well, I definitely have some. So in 1991, I went to Abilene Christian University to study marriage and family therapy. And I spent a couple of years there going through that program. While I was there, I had to read a book called the Essential Humility of marriage by one Dr. Terry Hart. There they are.

Hey, guys, if you have not read this book, it is so freaking good. Essential Humility of Marriage. After you read Mindful Marriage, of course.

So I was in Texas, and that year the national AAMFT thing was in Dallas. So we as students all went. And there was a Terry Hargrave who did some sort of a thing, and I'd read his book. So I sort of tapped into that, and I just really appreciated his work. Even at that season of my life, I was influenced by a lot of other traditional family therapy educators, authors and material. So came out of graduate school, but fully intended the whole time I was there to go back into local church work, which I did, went right straight back into family ministry. My first job was with a church in Northern California. And a couple of things that will be of interest to you guys. First of all, the graduate study I did exposed me to step family therapy material, which I don't think most people get in graduate school. I don't care what kind of field of counseling you're studying. I just was really blessed to have a whole course on what was called non traditional family therapy back in that time. Today, non traditional families are traditional families. So we studied single parent therapy and step family therapy. And when I went back into church ministry, I wanted to figure out how to translate that into education and enrichment. And so in 1993, I started doing step family ministry. I stumbled and bumbled, and there was nobody giving guidance. And I found two people in the whole universe who were doing that sort of thing. And here I am, 31, two years later. That's why it became my life is I just sort of stumbled my way into something that people began to recognize was needed and helpful. And honestly, that's my journey into doing the work that I do specifically with blended families is I just tried. So I didn't have any genius. I had no plan. I just tried and it sort of worked. And so it became something. But it was all my family systems training, specifically about step families, that led me down that road. While I was in Northern California, this new thing started at Pepperdine University called the center for the Family. And I was at the very first event that ever happened because I had a connection with Dennis and Emily Lowe, who were the initial founders of that. Sharon Hargrave would, of course, go on and become part of that. So I then started tracking with Pepperdine with some of the voices there. And of course, the Hargraves would come into my view. Fast forward a number of years. Nan and I have been in two different ministry contexts. I'm doing step family ministry full time as a freelancer. And I moved to Amarillo, Texas, because I had a friend there, a guy named Dr. Wibb Newton, who ended up working with. Yeah, so Wibb and I worked together, and they gave me an office, and I was doing step family education, consulting and speaking full time. And while I was there, of course, we had to huddle up with different therapists in the area, and the Hargraves were among those. Page one of the Mindful Marriage is about the day Nana and I's marriage blew up. And she insisted that we get some help. And the only person that I felt like I could trust was Terry. But I told her, there's no way we can get in to see him. And it was the next morning. We were in his office at 9am I'll never forget it. And that led us down this road of learning this from the inside, applied to our own relationship, our own marriage, our own journey. And while I was doing that, by the way. So that was in 2007. In 2009, my son Connor died at the age of 12. And the Hargraves had already moved to Fuller, to Southern California. But they continued to mentor and coach us from a distance because they had become so important to us. And so he helped us through that whole horrific journey, which we're still walking, by the way, 16 years later. But before they left, I think it was in around 2008 or so, I went to this thing out at this place called the Hideaway. And they brought in this guy named Shawn Stover and another guy named Nathan Phillips. I was there when we all started talking about what really became the seeds of RT. It's been in Terry for 100 years, I think, how old is he? But it's been rippling out of him. You can go back and read all his old books. You could see some of the elementary principles are there. But something happened that particular week that I really think moved it forward. And I just was in the room when it all. I look back on that and I just go, man, I had no idea what was happening, what was going to come out of where that would take him, that dialogue and that. It was just such a fascinating thing. And so I sort of was just in it, around it. I was soaking in it. I was trying to live it. I was trying to fix myself. I was trying to deal with my marriage. I was dealing with grief and loss. And while we were there, we're still doing life, doing counseling. I started doing marriage intensives at a different location, working with stepfamily couples in particular that would come in and I'd spend time with them. And it dramatically influenced how I do my clinical work and the training that I've done ever since then. So it's really just a crazy God thing. I think that we stumbled again upon something that is deeply meaningful and helpful to the world. Which is why we decided to write the Mindful Marriage. Because as you guys know, Terry writes deep and wide, and you really got to work at understanding some of the books and things that he's written. And so Nana and I went to he and Sharon and just said, we'd love to help you. Kind of just put this into narrative form that will help regular folk, that they could just pick it up and sort of do RT all by themselves. Like that would be our goal. And of course, they said yes. And they worked with us deeply, closely, co authored this book with us, the Mindful Marriage. So if you're listening right now and you're going, what do I give my clients? I think that's what the Mindful Marriage was meant to be, was the thing to refer your clients to. And by the way, I think there's a few things in there for you as well as a therapist that are a little unique, but that's who we were trying to write for. It's just general population people. And to put it in a narrative form. And Nan and I were really convicted that our story needed to be the example. And so let me just say to you guys, who will understand, Inadequacy is one of my core pains. And so I just love.

I know nothing about that.

I just. Yeah, yeah. So let me just say with every word on every page of that book, I am putting out there how inadequate I am. And that is such a humbling experience, which is the humility message that we wanted to try to convey as well. We have to go there with our own selves. We have to go there first. And that's what opens the door for other people, I think, to follow. And so we were just committed to being honest and laying it out there and forgetting any impressions that people had of us or who we were, what we'd accomplished already in life. We were just going to throw that in the trash. And this is our coming out party.

Yeah, I mean, we all have the copier in front of us, the Mindful Marriage. And I was just saying before we hopped on the air, you know, I was working with a couple this morning who found me because they listened to Nicole or read her books. And I had this book sitting on my desk and I said, hey, because we're working through the pain and peace cycle. I said, here's a book I think would be helpful. And she's like, oh, we already have it. Started using it and yeah, I don't care, you know, how far you get into your therapy work. Like, there are certain Books that I think simplify a process and make it, like, concrete. And that's what I. I don't know. That's what I found with the mindful marriage. Like, it. It. It reminds me of, like, both the simplicity and the powerfulness of the model because, you know, as therapists, we can get lost in all of the theory and all the moving pieces, but I feel like you guys have done a great job of, like I told the couple this morning, this is the book I would use, like, with a small group, you know, we could just work in a small group with this. And I know Lance is. We've had the same conversation. He feels the same way. Yeah.

And. And there is an option to order box. Like, a box of books. Like, I'm telling you guys, this is. This is a really good book. This is to me, I get so tired of, like, not having good book recommendations for the lay reader, you know, particularly for marriage. Yeah, this is it. This is the one. Like, if you have a faith, a person come of faith in the room with you, this is the one I recommend. I mean, there. There's, like, other ones that I think are decent, but they. I feel like they miss it so often, and I think you guys have really put it together really well. I gave it. I gave it to a pastoral friend of mine, and they wrote me back. They're like, this book you recommended, it's, like, the best marriage book I've ever read. And they've, like, read. They have, like, their own little podcast on marriage and stuff like that.

Wow.

So I. I can't, like, recommend it enough for. For giving this to your clients. And it's so app. It has. I mean, first off, Ron, God bless you for sharing so vulnerably throughout. And, you know, all you guys are breaking it open, which I think helps people to feel not alone. So I just really appreciate that.

Well, yay, God. Nan and I are very humbled by the whole process, and we give all the credit to Hargraves. It is their brilliance. It's our testimony with their teaching. That's what we'd say. And it's true. God does. He uses our mess, and it becomes the best part of us when we submit it to him. And I think that's just what we've tried to do. And by the way, I'll just mention, Nan and I are doing a mindful marriage conference. We're doing marriage events, and we have been known to, in real time, pause and do our four steps on stage in front of everybody to show Them the authenticity of the moment. If we had an argument, a fight in traveling and getting there, we bring it to the seminar, we give it as an illustration. We don't talk about what happened 20 years ago. We talk about today. Because this is discipleship. That's essentially what this whole process is. And so we try to make it very authentic and real. And people are loving it. They're absolutely loving it, simply because they can see themselves in there. And they don't walk away going, oh, we just heard from the experts who have everything pristine in their world, in their life. And let me just say, if you're a therapist and that's how you come off, I think we're missing influence. Yes, I know. Self disclosure. We should be careful about that. But I sat with Terry Hargrave as my therapist, and I can tell you a number of occasions where he shared vulnerably out of his life. And it drew me in. I leaned forward and leaned in. I did not lean back in judgment. That's your pain talking to you. When you think, I can't tell them that I had a hiccup this morning or a failing this morning because all of a sudden I've lost my credibility. Nope. I want to say that's your pain. That is not the power that you could have to influence if you would just hold yourself, know the truth, and live out of it. I'll tell you, Terry. Here's a Terry Hargrave story. After our son Connor passed away and we continued to consult with him at a distance, we had a phone call. I'll never forget where he apologized to Nana and I. This brings emotion. He said, you know, I've been working with you guys a while, and I started wondering if I have pushed you a little too hard away from the sadness toward getting back into life. And he said, so I went to a colleague, and it's a colleague that has lost a child. And I asked her, what do you think? And she said, yeah, Terry, I think you're just pushing a little too hard. And so he said, I'm telling you that story so I can apologize. Let's back up a little bit. This is Dr. Terry Hargrave, whom we all love and adore. Going. I took supervision and I learned something, and I'm sorry. Did he lose credibility with me? Oh, my goodness. He's got now 10 times more credibility with me because he's walking. The humility that he's inviting me to walk myself, that increases our influence. This is the biblical principle of God opposes the proud and Gives grace to the humble one. Pride will be opposed by God, you can count on it. If you stand up right now and pride is contending for supremacy with God, it's saying, I don't need you, I got this. I'm self sufficient, I can run my own life, thank you very much. That's essentially what pride is. And God will oppose that. He will let you come to the end of yourself in one way or another, often in pain because he's inviting you to take the knee of humility and say I don't got this, I need you, Lord. To which he is quick to run to our side with grace and compassion and mercy and lift us up. He does the lifting. We don't do the lifting. He does the lifting. That's Jesus language. Whoever humbles himself will be exalted, but he who exalts himself will be humbled. That's the same principle God opposes the proud, gives grace, the humble in different words. And so we invite grace from people when we take the road of humility. Now Nan and I believe very wholeheartedly that that vertical principle with God is also applies to human relationships, is built into the system of how God created the world. So I can ask my wife, let me say invite, I can invite my wife to oppose me by just being prideful toward her. Which is what blame, shame, control and escape is. I know better who you should be, so I'm going to blame shame, control you into being somebody different so I feel better about me. That's so manipulative, it's so backward and it's so prideful and all it's going to do is rise opposition up in her in the form of more blame, shame, control and escape from her. And now we're off and running in our pain cycle, right? So the change moment is when I say stop focusing on the speck in her eye and doggone it, Ron, look in the mirror. You got a log the size of the redwoods poking out of your eye and you can't see it because you're so focused on what she did or did not do that bothers you. Look in the mirror and deal with yourself. That humility moment is massive. Not only because it gives me an opportunity to stop reacting out of pain and start responding out of truth, but it also invites my wife to soften. It invites her to become compassionate for me and grace filled for me, which not only so I'm changing me, but it invites a change in her. This is the beauty of the four steps. It's just built right In. And it takes full advantage of how God has created vertical and horizontal relationships based on pride and humility. It's just masterful.

And I love that, Ron. I love that. I think I still remember the day that I showed Jennifer my pain cycle. We were. I remember I would. We were at. In front of, of course, with Sharon and Terry and everybody, because why not? But we were sitting there, and I. On my pain cycle, it says failure. Like, says that, you know, I'm, like, out of control. It says unloved. And back then it said discouraged.

I've.

I've edited it since, but I. And. And I remember, like, showing that. And I was so embarrassed in front of everybody to show my pain cycle. And there's one of the most precious moments for me. Jennifer, like, she goes, are you freaking kidding me? Are you freaking kidding me? This whole time, this, like. Like, spaz of a guy. She didn't say spaz. But. But this blow hard, angry guy, she did say that part. Flames and shuts down. This whole time, there's this guy that's, like, feeling unloved, failure, out of control, and discouraged. I'd much rather talk to that guy.

Yes. See, that's the softening. That's the grace that comes when you got humble.

Yeah.

My wife did the exact same thing. We tell the book about how Dr. Hargrave responded to my wife after she poured out her heart, talking about how abandoned she felt by me because I was off running, chasing the turtles. I like to say in my world, I was chasing my identity. It's what I was chasing. I had no idea I was chasing significance, but I was out trying to perform and do life well, and performance was my way of accomplishing a sense of who I am. Even now in this conversation, I'm tempted to go, oh, I need to look really good, because, man, I want Lance and Rhett to like me, and I want this audience to think well of me. Like, that's always in me. Always. And so I forced myself into saying the truth about me. I forced myself into humility, because then I'm dependent on God and not on me. I'm depending on a truth outside of me that transcends. And so it really helps me find who I am and find that place of calm. But when I finally got all this stuff out of me about feeling inadequate and never good enough and lack of safety because of that, Nan was like, who are you talking about? Like, you're the guy who writes books. You're the guy who does this. You're the guy who Shows up and crowds love you, and da, da, da, da. That can't be you, right? Because, again, in pride, we put on blinders about the other person. All we see is who we want to see, all we think we see who we size them up to be. We don't really have a heart of compassion for them. And now she will tell you that when I start performing, she sees this little guy who is just lacking and has forgotten who he is. And she can hug that. And she gets soft and tender around it. She used to get totally annoyed and angry, but now she sees what's underneath, and she understands that. So it's such a shift, not only in me, but it's a shift in her. And now both of us have grace for each other more than we used to.

Yeah, I love that. And we know that chasing turtles almost got you killed one day.

Yes. That's a scuba story. Our 21st wedding anniversary, we flew to Cozumel to go scuba diving. And first day was great. Had a wonderful dive. Day two, we teamed up with some people that are better divers than us, and that was a bit of a mistake. We had a master diver who was not very attentive. That was a big mistake. Of course, we didn't know that. And more importantly, we were diving to sea turtles. They were 80ft down is what we had told. And we had never seen sea turtle ever in our diving world. So we were gonna go get it, and we drop in the water, and we get about 25ft down. Oh, 50ft down. It was a new threshold for nan and I. 50ft. I'm looking at our little gauge, and I'm. So. I'm going to turn to Nan and make eye contact with her and go, you know, thumbs up, because you can't talk underwater. You got a big regulator in your mouth. And I can't find her. I mean, she's not beside me. She's not under me. She's not. I start doing this. I finally look up, she's under the boat, and I'm like, oh, man, what's she doing up there? I mean, she's missing all this stuff. We just. I don't know. And then I had this moment of temptation, like, I'm going to get turtles. I'm leaving my buddy. And that's rule number one is you never leave your buddy. And then I thought, well, she'll never forgive me for this if I go down there, so doggone it, I'm going to the surface, too. Long story short, there's a huge current in Cozumel that pushes you. So when I started swimming up to the boat, by the time I get to the surface, I'm 50, 70 yards from the boat. I'm also unable to inflate my vest, something I won't get into, but I couldn't inflate my vest and float. So I have all this weight on me, the tank, a 17 pound scuba belt. I'm probably 100 pounds over my weight. And I'm at the surface, but I can't quite kick hard enough to stay at the surface. And I start yelling for the boat, and they can't hear me. I can see them, but they don't see me. They don't even know I'm there. And so my anxiety is starting to go crazy. I'm going to die. I'm going to drown. I can't float. They don't know I'm here. And if they leave to go catch the team, follow the team, who's also drifting, right? If they have to follow the team, I'm out here all by myself and nobody knows I'm here. And I finally was able to get their attention by screaming at the top of my lungs. The most girlish scream you've ever heard out of a man in your entire life. And Nan heard me, and they came over and rescued me. And literally, I was. I mean, I was a minute away from sinking. Okay. Because I was so exhausted. Yeah, I almost died chasing turtles. And what I woke up to two weeks later when I sat up in bed in a cold sweat with my heart racing out of my chest, is that this is what I did to my wife. I left her for years. I started chasing my turtles. I was going after my goals, and it was all driven by the pain of feeling like I wasn't enough. And I had to prove it to the world. And she suffered dearly. She was isolated and separated from me, and she took off and left and went to safety. She threw herself into our kids and friendships and she found, you know, something somewhere, but it wasn't with me. And that all followed that time that we had spent with Dr. Hargrave. But I now had this experience that was visceral, that showed me the depth of the pain I had caused her. And I knew that was exactly what God wanted me to understand and learn about that so that I would be convicted to not ever do that again. That that was on me, not on her. I had blamed her a lot. Blames one of my piggies. But that day I knew it was me. And this was something I had to confront and deal with. And I've never forgotten it. Never.

Chasing turtles sounds a lot different when you say it that way.

It sounds innocent to chase turtles and scuba diving, but yeah, it's. Yeah. Basically selfishness.

Yeah.

It's shortcut, though. I guess if you mentioned that phrase in your marriage, you both know. Exactly.

Yes.

What that entails in terms of your pain and peace cycle.

And I think.

You guys mentioned the word, you know, and I got, like I said the book in front of me, Terry's Essential, Essential Humility of Marriage. I mean, at the core, I don't know, at the core of the model is this sense of humility.

And.

I don't know, I don't want to speak for all of you, but I think this is what attracted me to this model and community, is that it's always communicated to us anytime I'm together with RT therapists, that we need to be doing our own work. And if we're not doing our own work, you know, we're not going to be. Get there. Get very good therapists. And, you know, I was thinking, Ron, about your story about self disclosure, you know, and they trained therapists so much today, you know, with ethics. And there's such a fear to show your. To be yourself and to show up in the room for your clients out of fear of something happening, you know, and, and. But a lot of therapy involves risk putting yourself out there, or as Terry says, just stand up in the room and do something different. And I, I guess all I have to say, I think at the heart of the model and how it started is that there is a sense of call, a call to humility, and that you don't have all the answers. And you, you work the steps and you work the process and you grow as a person. And in doing so, you help your clients grow. And you just don't see that a lot today in the models that are out there. And yeah, that's what I love about it.

It's, you know, you can be distant and removed and really uncaring about people. You can be sterile in how you apply clinical models to working with people. But Terri and Sharon embody this stuff. I mean, they walk humility. You know, my testimony to that is that here's the book. Ron and Ann Diehl's name are on the front of the COVID I can tell you right now, the Hargraves, it's all built around their work and their material, and they physically wrote probably half of the book, but they wouldn't let us Put their name on the front cover. I lost that battle. I went toe to toe with Terry Hargrave and our publisher, and I lost that battle. Now their names are on the inside author page, so they get credit, and they're on the COVID on the back cover. But they wouldn't let us put their names on the front cover. Like, that's just who they are. That's what they embody. That's. It's real and authentic with them. And I think when we bring that level of authenticity to our own lives as disciples, I think what rte really the brilliance of it is that it's discipleship. Whether you want to call it that or not, you are growing up into Christ when you do this stuff. You are becoming more mature. You are becoming a person who is putting off your old self and putting on your new. That's the language of the New Testament over and over and over and over and over again. And here's how you do it. Practically speaking, the four steps is how you actually operationalize humility. That's what's beautiful about it, is we're not growing marriages. We're growing people who then grow their marriage and everything else that they touch, Their work, their children, their parenting, their neighboring, their. You name it, it grows us up as people. I tell people RT has done more from my discipleship journey than my 35 years of ministry and my college degrees because it's taught me how to actually do the stuff I'm called to do in Jesus. And so, yeah, marriage is just a byproduct of me being a better me.

Can you say more? I'm curious. I don't have a specific question, but I know we're all former pastors who have trained in seminary, and we're all therapists. And when you talked about being discipleship, I'm just. I don't know. I'm trying to get my hand. I mean, I'm. I'm with you on that, but just expanding the conversation because I know Nicole's been talking a lot about spiritual integration with her work. And I'm wondering, like, for somebody listening for whether they're a therapist or just curious, like, can you expand more on this concept of discipleship with the RT model?

Yeah. So every Sunday, if you're Muslim or a Christian, you go to church and they teach you some truth. And time and time again, I think everybody listening maybe has had at least one experience in your life where you showed up at a place and you go, oh, yeah, that is good. I need to be more gentle with My kids, I need to really learn how to do that. And Jesus calls me that. And he's gentle and lowly and hard. And you know what? That's a good idea. And then we leave. And we have no ability to put that into action, in part because our old self is still alive and well. What do I mean by our old self? Dallas Willard talks about how in rebellion, we assert our bodily power and make choices with our actions that are, in effect, sinful. It's in redemption that our spirit has turned back toward God, but the rest of our body is still stuck in its old self. And we know neurologically, literally, brain deep, there's neurological ruts that are going to lead you from pain to reactive coping, and you're going to be nanosecond, automatic in your old self without ever having to think about it. That real discipleship then is now my spirit is moved toward God, but now it's aligning my body toward God. That's the missing piece. So I walk out with my spirit saying I should be more gentle with my children. But in the heat of the moment, my reactivity kicks in, and I am not gentle. There is a massive gap between the truth we tell ourselves and that we learn on a regular basis in our spiritual lives and our ability to walk it out with our actual bodies. And you guys know why? Because it's all the stuff that's taught in rt. There is a, you know, that the embodied old self is still stuck. It's the process of slowing ourselves down and saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, old self, shut up. Hold on. I don't have to be reactive in that way. What's the truth? The truth is my child is disrespectful right now. But that doesn't mean I have to become disrespectful, just like they. It does not mean that I'm a horrible parent. It does not mean that whatever those pain points are for you. Slow down. Hold on. What's that all about? What's the truth? The truth is I'm in charge of myself. I can be gentle in response to this angry child in this moment, separate and apart from who the child is actually not. Getting angry will probably give me more leverage and more teaching ability with this child. There's 100 reasons why I need to put on gentleness right now. And when I then follow that with my body, I make myself act in a way in keeping with truth. I'm doing two things. Number one, I'm changing that moment. I'm being a better parent. And over time, the more I practice that new behavior, it's what changes my body to join my spirit and be in aligned with who God has called me to be. That's when you discover your real identity, your real vocation as a child of the king. But we gotta renew our minds, Romans 12:2, in order to change our behavior. And it's our behavior that changes our brain. And now my whole self and my whole soul. I mean, a lot of people. Let me just do a little sidebar here. A lot of people think our soul is something we have and it leaves and it comes and it goes after death or whatever. That's not biblical at all. The soul is you. You don't have a soul. You are a soul.

Yeah.

That's the proper understanding biblically of what a soul is. The whole idea that you have something that's in you that leaves when you die and it comes back when Jesus comes again is philosophy from Plato. And it's completely seeped into the church and who we are, but it's not biblical at all. Go watch the Bible Project videos on soul and you will be stunned by what you learn. My point is getting our soul in line, our whole body, mind, spirit in line. That's the challenge. We all know better than we do. It's when we get the doing to fall in line with the knowing. It disciples us. It changes us. We become our new self. We have the new self in the sense of redemptive spirit forgiveness. That's the already the not yet is the rest of me that hasn't caught up to that reality. And that's why we got to work on it, so that we're becoming more and more like Jesus. And why are we doing all this? Because the more I'm that way, the more the kingdom moves through me on earth as it is in heaven. We join God's recreation project of renewing the world and everybody in it.

Ron, you're so good, man. I could listen to you all day long. I just love the way you hold such great. Just loving it, man.

I appreciate it. Lance, just one last thought that let me just add, is. And that's what RT gives us.

Yeah.

The brilliance of this to me is it operationalizes the gap between the truth I know and the way I live.

Yes.

It helps you know what to do, to go from where you are to where you want to be. And so at the. At the end of the day, this is discipleship. This is growing us up to be better people, to be the people we want to be. It empowers us to be the people we're called to be, we want to be, we desire to be, and it helps us actually get there. And as we're getting there, we're improving our relationships and everything around it.

Well, and, you know, I mean, we can obviously use a model with people of faith or no faith, Christian, non Christian. But I cannot get away from, you know, when you go through seminary and you study Paul and there's all these critiques of Paul, and so I kind of, like, I wasn't sure what I thought about Paul for a while, but the more I'm in my faith, and as the years have passed and more therapy work I do, I am blown away. And I'm just thinking about, you know, everybody wants to camp on Philippians 4, 6. Don't be anxious and stop there. But I'm like, in four, seven, he says, here are some truths. And in four, eight, he says, meditate on these truths. And then in four, nine, he says, go out and practice them. Do it.

Do something. And I'm like, and what do you get?

You get transformation. You get new life. You get the new self.

I mean, in Paul's language right there, he says, and the God of peace, the peace is what follows the doing and the knowing. And by the way, in chapter two of Philippians, Paul talks about being anxious over his friend who was sick and almost died. And he talks about his anxiety. So when he says, don't be anxious, he's not saying that somehow it's sinful to be anxious because he was anxious two chapters earlier. Like, there's a holistic understanding here about what he's saying is, who do you trust? Do you trust yourself to make the situation better by worrying about it, or do you trust God? Will you take action based on what you know to be true about God? And that's where you get peace. It's really a very deeply profound passage. And that's just one of Paul's little sermons about the old self and the new self. Dallas Willard says Paul is the first psychologist, theologian, integrationist. You just read Romans 6, 7, and 8. He talks about his old self. He keeps on doing stuff he doesn't want to do anymore. Why do I keep doing this stuff? Yeah, because your old self is still in the flesh. It's still embodied in you. But then chapter eight, he talks about how life in the spirit, okay, now we're shifting. Now we're moving into something new and different, managed by, we would say by truth. Truth is going to inform our journey, and it Moves us in different directions and we become life and peace. Yeah. Romans 8, it's all in there. Terry has just found a very, extremely practical way of helping us do it.

Go ahead. I mean, I was thinking about the title of one of Eugene Peterson's book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.

Direction. Yeah.

And the subtitle is Discipleship in an Instant Society or whatever. Because Terry's always joking about we are a one trick pony. The one trick pony is pain cycle, peace cycle, four steps. Right. But that's what discipleship is. It's doing the same thing day in and day out in the long direction over time. That's what there's no, you know, we want to chase the fancy new model or the new tool. But discipleship and good therapy is doing the same thing day in and day out over time.

Yes. One of the later chapters of the Mindful Marriage is. So we've covered the essentials, the basics. We got people understanding their pain and peace cycle. They now understand what they're trying to do. Leave their old, go to their new. And then we have this chapter. We sort of begin to generalize the principles and say, okay, here's where it enters back into all of your life. How it affects your parenting, your marriage, your sex life, your grief over what happened, losses in your world. But we've got a chapter called Everyday Humility. And honestly, I come back to this over and over and over again for myself. The idea of micropane moments and how driving on the highway and somebody cutting you off or why in the world is this person going 45 miles an hour in the on ramp line? You know, those aggravations in my world are little invitations for me to look in a mirror and go, ron, what's going on?

You.

Why do you want to yell and scream and cuss at that driver ahead of you? What is so important in your world that that's what's drawing up out of you? That little micro moment, pain moment is an invitation for me to go. How do I disciple this part of me today? And so it's not just driving at a healthier marriage, it's driving at a healthier me. And once you learn this, all of life becomes a moment of opportunity to learn how to be another step closer to Jesus. Yes.

It just kind of brings me to the scripture of, you know, we love to quote John 8:32, you know, then you'll know the truth and the truth will set you free. Yeah, I love that. It's like on all the T shirts and everything. But we don't put the other part, which says, you know, to the Jews who believed in him, it says, if you hold to my teaching, then you're really my disciples. There's that word, disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Holding to the teaching, you know, the truth that we're. That which is what we're trying to get to with restoration therapy. It's so liberating. So I. I'm so engaged with this idea of restoration therapy as a discipleship model. And this is all we're doing, is learning to hold to the teaching. It's not like it's something new every day to what you're saying, Red. It is very much this thing of, no, what did he say? What did he say? You know.

I think it's why, like, the 12 step recovery model is so powerful. It's the same thing over and over, right? Their teachings. And I want to tell you guys a quick Dallas Willard story if I can, because it's not. I mean, you brought him up twice, and I think he was someone who walked. Walked humbly. And I remember in like, two. It's about. It's about 2007, 2008, when I was the college pastor at Bel Air Presbyterian. Most of my students were at USC and ucla. And one of my USC students said, hey, I'm taking philosophy from Dallas Willard. Could I ask him to come speak some Wednesday night in our college group? And I'm like, sure, yeah. But I'm thinking, I mean, at the time, Dallas Willard, I mean, his books were huge. He was traveling the country with Richard Foster, doing the renovari stuff. And he came back to me and said, dallas Willard says he's great, and here's his email. And just pick a date. And so I'm emailing with Dallas Willard, and he just drives up from usc, you know, one Wednesday night up to Bel Air Perez, and he walks in the college group, about 100 kids. And he walks in in his suit, right? He's got his suit on like his professor, and he sits down the front row, and he's just worshiping with our praise and rock band. And he gets up there and just delivers this, like. I mean, the students were, you know, like, glued age. And, you know, they don't even know some of who Dallas Willard is, but they're like, this guy. There's something about him. And I think as brilliant as he was, I think he just embodied that. That word humility. And that seems to be an important factor in the. In the teachings and the models that we're talking about, whether it's RT or the teachings of Jesus, obviously, or other people, like, if somebody embodies humility, if we as therapists can walk in a room and embody humility, I don't know, something transformative that takes place in that experience.

It invites grace. It invites them to soften towards you, to listen, to tune in, to heed, which, I mean, this happens at all levels of society, all levels of relationship. We can all right, now think of a politician that we would call prideful and that we would go, yeah, I am so sick and tired of hearing from that blowhard. Like, we just don't even want to be under them, right? What do we want to do? We want to oppose them in a hundred different ways. But then you have a humble leader who admits mistakes and says, oh, man, we blew it. We missed that one, and I'm sorry, here's what we're going to try to do instead. And you just, like, cut him a break. Let's go. There's a natural grace that follows somebody of that nature. This is true in parenting. My goodness. You want to have more voice with your kids, deal with yourself. Put on humility. Start making that a genuine, authentic piece of who you are. Quit worrying about your image in their eyes, and you will get the opposite. The more prideful you are, the more opposition you invite from your kids, the more humble you are, the more they listen and attune. It doesn't mean they're just going to adopt everything and you're never going to have any hiccups with your kids, but I think over time, it increases your ability to influence. That's absolutely true of clinicians as well.

So. So, Ron, I'm thinking, since we're on this point now, I would love for our therapist, because this is one of my major, major things with this podcast is I want to give them something to learn. So I'm wondering if you could help us with the humility shift here today. If you can kind of give us the rundown on the humility shift for anyone that's got a client and they're working with a couple or even individually, you can do it. Could you kind of walk us through that?

Yeah, let's go through from a couple of different vantage points, and let's just.

Say it's also in the book, in the, in the first appendix. If people are look at home or thinking about this humility shift, that's a good resource for that.

Yes, that is a very specific intervention. Let me Pull back before we do that and just talk about humility in general. I often find if I'm working with somebody and you know, we can put words on and map and sequence their pain and peace cycles, but they're having a really hard time implementing. Guys, I really believe the heart shift, the pride humility piece comes before implementation will work. You can see it on paper and you can go, yeah, that's, you're right, okay, I'm going to practice. But you can't do it if you're standing in pride because there's something in you that needs to be right, that needs to be okay in and of yourself and your self reliance and the act of saying, boy, am I off right now. I'm dysregulated. And here's how. Putting words on that is a humbling experience. And you just won't do it publicly or privately if pride stands in the way. So I often find this is something I've got to wrestle with my clients when they won't make change like they should be progressing and they're not. This is something I'm going to chase, the heart issue. And so let me just offer that as a point of perspective about why some people get it and immediately find themselves growing and other people don't. Once you get there with the pain and the peace cycle, Terry crafted this humility shift and it is in the appendix of the book. And I'm just going to physically kind of walk through it so people can hear what the intervention is. This is meant to be a little daily exercise and it's meant to be a reminder of my journey and where I'm going. So in a sense, this is a practice, if you will. This is a practice doing the four steps in a calm, regulated moment. But nevertheless, it's what we got to keep getting ingrained in us to be able to do it in the heat of the moment. Right? And so this little humility shift thing is just a great little daily action. If you can get them doing it. It starts with reminding them of the goal, and that is putting on their new self. And there's a passage out of Colossians, chapter three that just reminds them of who we're called to be as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate, put on compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience bearing with one another. And if any has a complaint forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you every day, you're just reading that and reminding yourself, yeah, this is who I'm becoming. This is where I'm going. The second step is to then proclaim that truth about God in your life and his significance in your life. So this is just a moment where you are vertically going capital table truth. And it's a moment of worship again, that's really important to remind me who I'm not and who he is. I need that so that I'll remember he's in charge and I'm submitting to this process. And so we give people a script, but what they're going to ultimately do is write their own script for themselves based on their pain and peace cycle. What they're learning about themselves, they're going to write something very personal. But here's the sample. God is the Creator. And you're going to. We're going to have them stand, lift their hands up. God is the Creator.

It's really important to pay attention to that part. Posture. When I did this, when I just read it, it was one thing, but when you do the posturing, it totally changes the flow. So pay attention to standing up.

That's it. Stand up, lift your hands up. Look up to God. God, you're the creator, the authority, overall perfect and loving. You have a plan for me. You are more, I am less. That is a statement of humility. Every day I am reminding myself who he is and who I am not. The next step is to say a truth about yourself and how God sees you. So again, we are getting rooted and aligning our own mind with the mind of God on our behalf. So this is lowering your hands and keeping them open, maybe placing them over your heart, kind of holding onto yourself. Yes, some sort of a posture of receiving from God. And here's the sample. But again, they're going to write their own very personalized statement. But here's the sample. I am special. I'm chosen, holy and beloved by God who sacrificed all for me. I am loved like no other. Again, you want to be reminded of love and safety that gets you really centered in a vertical truth that is so helpful. As we're walking through this hard, difficult life, the next step is to simply reckon with your current rebellion through out of control emotional dysregulation. So this is where you are reminding yourself. Yeah, I lose it. There's a part of me that I don't really manage well. And you're going to lower your hands to your side, you're going to let your head drop and you're going to take a posture of humility, of owning yourself. And you're going to say out loud, my old self moves against God and who I am created to be. My heart often rejects the fruits of the Spirit. I do not have the compassionate heart that God gave me and I struggle with humility and patience. Now that's a sample. Again, my personal statement is going to be different than yours and it's even more convicting because I am now seeing myself truly through the pain and peace cycle process. So here I am going to write it in there and it's going to be me. And I'm reminding myself, yep, this is the part I'm working on. And then the last step is simply to release the drive to be reactive and embrace self regulation and growth. And you can place your hands maybe on your heart or cross your arms and just kind of take a posture of, or take a knee. I know for me I like physically to drop to a knee or both knees because now I'm really in a posture of humility. And I say out loud, I choose the path of humility and will slow down and repent of my blame, shame, control and escape reactivity. Instead, I'll do my four steps and I'll move my heart to be self controlled, patient and humble. Now it took long to talk through that, but physically, for somebody who's written it out and has it down, it takes a minute or less to go through that whole thing each day. What are we doing here? We are helping people get centered in a vertical truth and a vertical relationship with God. We're helping them remember what's true about them, both from a God's point of view and a reality of how I can blow it point of view. And they're owning that part of themselves and saying, this is my log to deal with. Here's what I'm going to do, here's where I'm going, here's how I'm going to manage this. It's just a simple little daily reminder of how I am transforming so that when the chips are down, it makes it a little more easier for me to grab hold of those four steps and actually walk through it.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm curious for a second. Let's play around with the idea that you're working with a client who either a doesn't come from like a faith background or is really struggling with their faith. So we're struggling to maybe use some of the language around God or even, even thinking about our posture being in a worship, right?

Yes.

But we're trying to help them connect to that, that to do the same shift to, to, to, to be humble. I'm Just thinking out loud, what might that look like? Or have either of you had some experience using that in the room with a client in like a non Christian, non faith based perspective practice?

Essentially, I'm going to try to figure out an experience that they've had, a relationship that they've had perhaps with somebody they would consider to be a humble person that garnered respect from them, that they look to as an example of the kind of person that I want to be and how this person got there and their influence on me. And so I'm looking for something outside of themselves ultimately that is the capital T truth about God, if you ask me. But I think there's a lowercase T somewhere in our experiences in this world, in life, we have coaches, we have people that have influenced us at different phases of our world that could be an example of the kind of thing that we're moving toward. So I'm going to look for that and try to pull on that piece as something for them to sort of attach or move themselves toward.

Yeah, I like that idea of like, think of somebody that is really pure. Like think of somebody that you really.

Admire, could be a grandfather or you know, somebody in their world that sort of embodies that. Because I think people humility doesn't have to be a spiritual element. You know, it doesn't have to be attached only to God. There's lots of people in our world and again, it is a universal truth that humble people invite us closer to them. So whether you believe that that originated with a relationship with God or not, I just think it's true. And so people are going to be able to find somebody somewhere hopefully that they can connect to and if they can't, you know, every once in a while you run across somebody who just has nothing to draw on for that. That's a harder situation. But now I'm just sort of beginning to try to paint a picture of, well, could you imagine what it would look like if you were to experience that? Is there somebody that was close, you know, and we're just sort of going off the, trying to build off of what they have available to them.

Lance, I'm curious because, I mean Ron and I obviously saw you work in the room at the summit, in the group, and I think you're really good at like experiential and body like sculpting and everything. Did any thoughts come to your mind in terms of how you might position someone or move someone the room that's helpful in terms of doing this shift?

Yeah, I think this is kind of get Rod to talk specifically about those moments, because when you get people to stand up, you know, and they're like, lifting their hands to, like, recognizing, you know, the Lord, I think that's so powerful. And, you know, Terry's always getting us, like, when we're saying our truths to like, put our hands on our hearts and. And to do that. And I found it to be really powerful specifically to say, hey, I want you to like, you know, either to take this kind of pose for humility of like pointing down or. Or even like when I started doing it, I. I was like, oh, what's the thing I don't want to do the most? And the thing I didn't want to do the most was to get on my knees. I hate. I hate getting on my knees for. Just because it's painful.

And.

But then I was like, you know what? I'm gonna do it. And so I. I think the more that we, like, move the body around and help them to do that, it makes a big difference. And I noticed a big shift in me when I got on my knees. Like, it's this, like, weird. Like I can feel it in my body now just thinking about being on my knees, like where. Like. Yeah, that's. There it is. So, yeah, doing those. Doing those movements and doing it with your client, obviously, I think just like you being the director doesn't work as well as being the co journeyer with them as you're doing this going back to the self of the therapist.

Oh, good. I'm so glad that's in the book too. Like, such a great tool to help clients. You know, I mean, I just think all the marriage ministries that would benefit man from it and miss it. That misses this piece. That misses the humility piece.

It does. Sorry. Go ahead, Lance. And then I. I got a little sidebar to tell you about humility.

Well, cool. Yeah, I was just going to ask you specifically, Rod, about. Because you're doing this on your. With the mindful marriage teaching like that you're going around and. And is this on the fan? That's on the family life as well, right?

Well, yeah, sometimes we do it at family life events. Like, we spoke family life Marriage cruise this past February and did a bunch of this material, but some of it I'm just doing freelance. Churches just invite us to come in.

Yeah. Which I like freelance in prison, Lance is not as good.

No, no pun intended. Or pun intended. Yeah, I should say. Guys, I just. A little sidebar here about. I got to tell you this story just because I think it will really impact you guys. We in the Christian community talk a lot about Philippians 2 and how Paul in that passage talks about having the mind of Christ, who put on humility, who humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on the cross. It's a great poem, talking about the humility of our Lord and how powerful that was and how it changed everything, what he did for us, sacrifice and how God exalted him to the highest name above all names. By the way, notice the process. You bow in humility and God does the exalting. It's the same thing happened to Jesus that happens to us. Think about that for a second. But embedded in that whole passage is this idea of here's one of the things humility does. It doesn't look after itself. It considers the interests of others above itself. Yeah, that's what it does. See, when we're humble, we're able to not have to be self centered and self focused. We can actually be looking to how do we serve and give other people and build them up. Now that's been talked about as long as the Bible's been around. All right, now set that aside for a second. There's a guy named John Gottman. You ever heard of him? Yeah, he's done a little bit of research on marriage and has his own model of marriage therapy and whatnot. And it's been pretty influential in a lot of circles for a long time. And 30 years ago he came out with a book, I think it's been 30 years ago, where he talked about what predicts divorce. And everybody now quotes the four horsemen of the Apocalypse as he talks about them. And these are the things that when you see them happening in large number, everybody does all four of these. But when you see these things happening, the end is near. He predicted, with 93% actually couples that would divorce within five years based on how much defensiveness, criticism, contempt and stonewalling they did in their relationship. Now, everybody quotes that book, but what they often don't talk about is 15 years after that book came out, he wrote another book, and it was called the Science of Trust. And I don't know if you've read it, but it's a tough read because it's very academic, it's full of numbers. They basically just give you all the research they did to try to understand what trust was. And in the start of the book he says, well, if you've read my what Predicts Divorce, I want you to know we missed something. Now doesn't that just grab your attention? What did you miss? And he goes on to say we missed the importance of trust. If you can't trust somebody in a relationship, and really this speaks to emotional safety, right? If you can't, if you don't feel safe in a relationship, then that is what triggers the four Horsemen of the apocalypse. So safety sets up either the four horsemen or more loving, giving behavior. About halfway through that book, he says he spends an entire chapter talking about how they. They had to measure trust. Because that's what he does is right. Research. And so they had to figure out a way to measure what trust is. Hang with me. I know this is a long story, but it's going so well.

You're doing great.

I'm so engaged.

He said we had to figure out what trust was so we could operationalize it, so we could measure it. And we had all these guys conversations and we did all these preliminary studies and we tried to whittle it down and figure out what the best measures were. And at the end of the day, we decided that really what trust comes down to is having someone else's interest above your own. It is putting aside your interests and considering theirs above your own. He, in effect, quotes Philippians 2. This is how you know you have a safe, loving, trustworthy relationship when you are looking out for them and not just yourself, and they can trust that you're looking out for them. Oh, my word. He is not a believer and he is quoting Philippians 2. This is what humility offers us. The incredible power of emotional safety in relationships. And that is from secular science.

Wow.

That again, just blows your mind about Paul.

Yes.

Was writing about thousands of years ago. You know, it's just, it's. It boggles the mind.

Divinely inspired. Correct. He's getting to the truth and he's telling us how it is. We just don't align with it, which is the discipleship issue here, of course. And we don't operationalize it. We know it. We can tell you, we can quote it. But do I live it? That's where the gap is. And I think the four steps helps close that gap. 100.

I always think about Terry saying, like, what's in the best interest of the U.S. like, that's, that's, like when. Like, that's the difference of, like, trying to, you know, get into this mess with one another. You know, like, you know, trading off the. Like tolerating one another or getting in competitive, like, competition, like when you're collaborating, making choices in the best Interest of the us like that's when you're making. What's the thing that you make when you're making like that pun or that. What's that saying like we're making?

I don't know.

I was trying to figure this out the other day. It's like killing me.

Huh? Yeah. I'm not sure where that's.

Now we're making.

I, I make a good time. I don't know.

I'm making dynamite. Now we're making something. It's. I feel like it's a Southern saying. I grew up in Virginia, so we'll figure it out.

Probably when we're awesome.

Exactly.

I hope someone. I hope someone comments because it's like driving bonkers. But making decisions in the best interest of the us like that is that humility of the greater good of like, let's move towards that. Which is more important. Yeah. Gosh, Ron, you are such a rich. We gotta. Gotta get you on here more or we just need to listen to the family life more, I guess.

Well, we, we got about. And let's see. What if you're okay with this, Lance and I, we realized you got about 15 minutes left and we were thinking about one more intervention. I don't know if it's an intervention and it's up to you if you want to go this direction or not, but you've been playing around with a metaphor for a little bit and I'm wondering if that metaphor is helpful for a therapist in the room with the client or in ministry setting perhaps.

Yes. And this is wet cement metaphor, so feel free to massage it. Make it your own. Recently I was just bouncing it off of you guys and some other RT people because, you know, I'm working with it. We're trying to figure this out, but I do think it's an intervention, especially when you're trying to help somebody grapple with what self regulation is versus the co regulation that the whole world has pointed them to. That every musical song, love song ever is CO regulation. Every and really most marriage therapy movements. And I've looked into Gary McGuire, the top selling marriage books over the last 70 years, especially in the Christian community, but also in the secular community, are all pushing people towards CO regulation.

Oh man.

And we don't have any idea how much we're soaked in that. And so when you start trying to talk to people about self regulation, they don't get it. So here's the metaphor that I have found helpful. It's scuba diving. And if you're going, well, I Don't dive, and my clients don't dive. Well, that's okay. Just get them imagining diving, and their anxiety will go up. They will begin to feel it. It's scuba diving just sort of has that effect on people. But anybody who's ever been a diver immediately understands this. I've used this many times. And they just immediately get it. Even if you've gone snorkeling, everybody knows snorkeling is great. I tell people snorkeling I thought was a 10 on a 10 scale until I went scuba diving. And then I realized snorkeling is a two and diving's a 12. It is unbelievable to be in the ocean, among the ocean, viewing the ocean with no despair, with no sense of, how do I get my breath? I'm perfectly comfortable down here. See, there's the challenge. Because you're not a fish and you know it. Your brain says, I cannot be underwater this long. What in the world am I doing? You have to combat that anxiety constantly. Well, this is the anxiety of relationships. Am I good enough? Is she happy with me? I just saw a look in her eye. I think, that looks like a shark to me. I think I'm in for it. Oh, no, here we go again. This is the anxiety of marriage that people bring in with us, or their mom, their family of origin. You name the relationship. It's what they feel. Sharks. And I'm not comfortable down here. I'm not safe down here. And so imagine two divers, and you always stay with your buddy. Commitment is really important. Two divers going 50, 100ft down, they each have their own tank. They each have their own pipeline to the oxygen, to their mouth. That's called a regulator. That's what actually goes into your mouth. It's the. That's the Darth Vader thing that you breathe in and out of. And by the way, regulators, interesting, great sound effects. Yeah, great. Thank you. I've been working on that. Regulators are fascinating. Little. Little device there. It actually regulates the air and the pressure of the air going into your lungs so you don't blow your lungs up. You need regulators. You can't just suck air. You have to actually regulate it so that it will match the air inside you and around you. And regulators do that for us. See how important this is? You have air in your sinus cavity. Most people don't realize this when they go up in an airplane. That's why you get a little headache sometimes. Or you have to kind of hold your nose and blow or, you know, chew gum or swallow you know, people have learned those little tricks to regulate their air pressure in their sinuses. Well that's at 30,000ft. You often have to do it once when you're diving every 10ft, every 10ft down there is a new air pressure and you have to regulate your sinuses every time. For me underwater with a regulator in my mouth, I have to hold my nose and gently blow and I'll have one ear that will go whoop and it clears my other ear. I have to swallow to get my other ear to every 10ft. This is a part of what you manage in yourself in order to be able to enjoy the amazing God given ocean. But when you're with a buddy, so you got to keep an eye on them and you can't talk, you got a thing in your mouth, so you do hand signals. You got to learn a whole system of communication and you got to get good at it because you're sharing this experience with one another. But listen, once you figure out your anxiety, how to communicate, how to stay connected, you have the experience of an absolute lifetime. And you're not alone, you're with somebody else. This is self regulation. Now imagine those same two people and all of a sudden one of them loses air in their tank or something goes wrong. Well, they're immediately coming over to you and they're wanting you to put your regulator, pull it out of your mouth and stick it into theirs. That's the only way they can get air. You got to head to the surface. But in the meantime, how are they going to breathe? So now they need your heir and they need you to keep them from not being panicked. And they don't know where they are because they're just so afraid right now of dying. And you've got to point them upwards and all of a sudden you're parenting them.

Hold me tight, baby. Hold me tight.

Hold me tight, baby. We are parenting them. And so now all of a sudden your heir is their heir is your heir is their heir and their anxiety is your anxiety and so on, so forth and you are wrapped up in one another. You're a foot away. Nobody has freedom. Everybody's locked in. They are dependent on you. This is co regulation and that's not enjoyable. That's not freedom, that's a really despaired marriage. That's how people come into us, is wrapped up breathing one another's air. Well, he said I'm terrible and he won't do this and he doesn't do that and therefore that tells me I'm insignificant. See she's breathing his air.

He's breathing air.

Yeah. If you adjust right then all of a sudden my pain would go away. Well, you won't make those changes, so I'm going to blame shame, control, escape you into making those changes whether you like it or not. That's my pride. Telling your pride that you should be better than you are. And now we're both breathing one another's air and we are completely intertwined and nobody is enjoying the ocean. Nobody is free to enjoy each other. We don't want to help people co regulate, we want to help them unhook, breathe on their own, breathe their own air, manage their own air pressure, manage their own sinus pressure, keep their goggles free so they can see clearly into the ocean. And whatever's down there that they got to deal with, they're now working as a team to confront the sharks of life. That's what we want. Self regulation. Two people self regulating is an amazing, wonderful dive. So I just found that metaphor helps people imagine and put themselves and then they can transfer that into their marriage and go, okay, now I see where we're going with this.

So while I hang out with you, because I mean, I tried it actually yesterday in a session with clients and they're not scuba divers and it was like it clicked for them, you know, And I think one of the, I don't know if this is the right word, but one of the payoffs and the beauty of being self regulated and in peace is that you are then free to do the very thing that your partner has desired from you anyways, to, to like give those things. Not because it's. Not because it's demanded that as in the words Jerry Maguire, you complete me. But out of the peace I experience of knowing that I'm loved and I'm safe and I'm valued, I am free, therefore, to move towards you in that way. Yeah, I don't know, I'm just rambling, but that's just.

No, no, no, that's. That's perfect and beautiful. And when, okay, just imagine your partner's air is just cut off and they need your air to breathe. Like, you are both now in a state of panic. You're both headed to the surface. No more intimacy. At depth, you're just trying to survive. And at best, this is an experience of shared panic. That's what co regulation gets you. You're going to the surface, there's not going to be any depth, there's not going to be any freedom, there's not going to Be an enjoyment of what's around you or of each other. It is only survival. And the whole time each of you has these huge expectations for how the other needs to save me. Nobody's taking care of themselves. It just doesn't work.

Yeah, I really like it. I think it's something that, the more that we kind of play with this, this idea, I think we have to stop buying in the idea of co regulation. Like it is a parenting.

Yeah.

It's not even parent. Like parenting is one way. So your child doesn't even regulate you. So that's not even co regulating. That's. That is regulating. Right. So I, I'm, I'm such a fan of what you're doing as we're kind of coming up with images because I really want to go deep with my wife. Right. I want to be able to experience life with her on that level. And if I can't learn how to regulate myself, I'm never going to be able to go to that level with her.

Yeah.

And you have to really take toll. And I remember when we first started out the RT work, Jennifer and I, we would do do the two steps. I don't know if you guys ever did this with yours. And I would be like, well, I got so mad because I was feeling like a failure. Right. You know, but I wouldn't regulate myself. Right.

Yes.

And as soon as I started like, well, what's the other two steps? You know, the truth is I know I'm still called. So I'm going to really stay engaged here and I'm going to be caring because I know I can do that. So yeah, I think shifting to this idea of like Jen's not going to me explaining myself to her doesn't really make a difference until I get myself straight.

Exactly.

I mean, at some point it would be worth doing a whole other podcast just on this idea of co regulation because even as you were sharing, I started rattling up all the books in my head that especially in the Christian world that probably were written with good intent. Not meaning to be correct.

We've.

We've almost co. Opted.

Yes.

Our marriage circles and made them co regulation techniques. And that's something we have to undo.

Rhett. We should. But let me just say here, I think there's a reason we do that. First of all, that's all we know. And there's something meaning that even the secular world is soaked in co regulation. That's the assumption of what is healthy and good. But there's something romantic about the idea that my wife can do enough or be enough for me that all of my pain goes away. There's something deeply romantic about that, that I just want to be rescued. And you know, here's another Terryism, right? Steward your own pain. Well, no, I don't want to steward my pain. I want somebody else to rescue me from my pain. That's romantic. That's what movies are made of. That's what songs are all about. I can't live without you. On and on it goes. All you need is love from the Beatles. Like, not true. I've got to manage what's inside me. And my wife's good, but she's not that good. I'm getting better. I'm not that good. We cannot make that pain go away for us, each other. That's the first big romantic assumption of marriage and it simply does not work. It keeps both of you stuck, heading to the surface because you're fighting in panic. What is freedom and is the depth of intimacy of I manage me and everything going on with me and she manages her. And that frees us to connect, to enjoy each other, to serve each other. To point out our first dive, our master diver pointed out a seahorse that was 2 inches tall. Apparently those are incredibly, incredibly rare to see on a dive, partly because they're so small. We saw one on our very first dive, but we just had this moment of sharing that beautiful thing with each other. No words because you're. You got a thing in your mouth. And yet it's still one of the most connecting moments that we reflect on when it comes to special times in our life. That's what diving's about. That's what marriage is meant to be. You're co regulating. You can't enjoy any of that.

Nope.

Yeah.

Well, man, what a gift. I think you had me at hello today.

This is why I have Lance as the co host. He's out all the jokes.

I'm so thankful for you, Ron. Thank you so much for your contributions and I'm just looking forward. We got so much more dialogue to do for the next like few decades here as long as God has us here. And thank you for being such a gift to the RT community, Ron. And yeah, we'll certainly make sure check out family life. Get them, get the mindful marriage book for your people, all the notes on.

The podcast and smart step family therapy training. Do it May 22nd and 23rd coming up. But we'll do it again. If you hear this past that, we'll do it again. But come see us smartstepfamilies. Com.

All right.

Check it out, guys. Yeah. God bless you, Ron. Cheers.

Thank you.

Thanks, guys.