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What is Internal Family Systems (feat. Matthew @matthewmusgrave_)
224 Plays2 years ago
In EPISODE 51 I am joined by Matthew M (@matthewmusgrave_) who is a dad, and husband and works as a counselor in Canberra, Australia. We do a deep dive into what IFS is (internal family systems). Matthew walks us through the nuts and bolts of this modality. He shares his personal story of going through therapy with a therapist trained in IFS. He also shares some of the struggles Australian men face when coming to therapy.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Guests
00:00:00
Speaker
Quick pause. Drum roll. Drum roll. I'm gonna probably keep this in. You should probably let us. It'll be a little blooper.
00:00:16
Speaker
This is a therapy for dads podcast. I am your host. My name is Travis. I'm a therapist, a dad, a husband here at therapy for dads. We provide content around the integration of holistic mental health, well-researched evidence-based education and parenthood. Welcome.
00:00:37
Speaker
So welcome to the Therapy for Dance podcast. My name is Travis. I'm your host. If you're new to listening and tuning in, welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm excited to have you jump on board and be part of the conversations here. And tonight, this morning, afternoon, whenever you're tuning in, we have
00:00:54
Speaker
a new friend, a new special guest, who is named Matt, who is coming, we're calling him from quite a distance away from where I live. Again, if you knew the show, I'm out in Southern California in South Orange County, work as a marriage and family therapist. I'm a father of three. And Matt and I recently met really, I think about, ugh, maybe a couple weeks, month ago, I think. Two, three weeks ago, yeah. Two, three weeks ago, maybe a month, I might be pushing my brain.
00:01:22
Speaker
I often have dad brain and so I the time is often Not so well with me anymore unless I see it on a calendar. I don't really Everything kind of blends together. It's like I don't know if this was a year ago or a week ago because I Anyway, welcome Matt. So hey
00:01:45
Speaker
Who's Matt like worry from? What do you do? I'm sure you all can probably tell from the accent. I'm Matt. I'm a
00:01:56
Speaker
registered mental health counselor living here in Canberra, Australia, the capital of Australia. I am a father. I've got two boys. I resonate wholeheartedly with your spiel just then about time and not understanding, not having full-time awareness because I've got a four month old and we haven't slept in that time. So I am exactly the same. The brain fog is real for me.
00:02:23
Speaker
So yeah, I'm a mental health counsellor. I run my own private practice over here online. I work solely at the moment with men and fathers and their loved ones. I do have a couple of female clients who transferred over from my last job. I've worked in criminal justice in the past, probation parole officer.
00:02:46
Speaker
I've worked in the community for three years as domestic family violence, man's behaviour change practitioner, running groups, doing one on ones, working in the community to create safer environments for men, women and children.
00:03:01
Speaker
I have a master's degree in counseling psychology, undergrad in criminology, and I'm ex-military. I spent two years in the army about 10 years ago. So that kind of shapes a little bit about my context and where I'm at and what I've been doing for the last decade.
00:03:20
Speaker
I actually didn't know your military. Great. Thank you for serving. You didn't serve in the U.S. here for Australia, but still, thank you for serving. I was a Navy brat, so my dad served in the U.S. Navy. So thank you for serving, even though it's a different country. Thank you for your sacrifice.
00:03:36
Speaker
Um, so why I have Matt on? Well, one, because we, I think we just hit it off having conversation. It was easy to talk to Matt. And the beautiful thing about doing this podcast that I keep reiterating every single time I have a new guest on is just the amazing just experience of meeting men and women across literally across the globe. Um, living in Southern California. I feel like most of my guests have not been from out of the people who started, which were my dad friends locally.
00:04:03
Speaker
Yeah. Pretty much everyone else outside of a few have not been from California. They've been across the US, literally across the globe. I've had people from the UK and England, a few. I've had quite a few from Canada. You were my first from Australia, but yeah, you took the box. So it's great. I have a map. I'm filling in a little map of like, you know, the whole world eventually might be a goal to get everyone from a country.
00:04:32
Speaker
Something that Matt is passionate about and that I'm actually interested in learning more about, and I think this would be a good conversation for the listeners as well who are interested in this stuff, is this model of therapy called IFS, or the full name, Internal Family Systems.
Exploring Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy
00:04:52
Speaker
Part of why we're on is because Matt is passionate about that. It's something he is working on and has Worked in for the past few years and is I think correct me if I'm wrong loving the model really enjoys using it And it's kind of continuing down the path of I believe sort of full certification at least on that
00:05:10
Speaker
path, I think. Yes, that is the plan, although it is a very long term plan. Yeah. Yeah. And like, and I get that some of these certifications take a while. They're not quick. Um, some of them are quick. Some of them take years to get certified in. So, uh, it's like another, some of these are like getting another two masters, like as far as time goes, you know, just in one system, which is good. Cause you kind of then know, wow, this person really understands this really well.
00:05:40
Speaker
Um, but that's why it's on today. So let's just jump in. So first and foremost, like, like in a nutshell, like what is, what is IFS? Oh, it's so hard to pin it down into a nutshell, right? Because, you know, like you were saying before, in terms of like these modalities, um, you can do this stuff for decades and still be learning the nuances and applying it to different contexts and situations. And
00:06:04
Speaker
IFS is really no different. It is a therapeutic and a psychological model born from a man named Dr. Richard Schwartz. He was trained in a traditional family systems therapy, which for those of you who don't know is like a very externally based model. They tend not to look
00:06:28
Speaker
They don't look at the individual. They tend to look more at the relationships between family members between environments between social context and believe that if you change those contexts that the relationship between the individuals will change as well.
00:06:46
Speaker
It was very externally focused. What Richard ended up sort of finding was that when he was doing one-on-one work back in the 80s was he was finding that he was trying to apply this sort of family external systems model to particular clients. And what was happening is they were coming back and saying no.
00:07:05
Speaker
No, that's not like that. This is just not working for me. Part of me just does not want to do that or apart is just not helping because it's not actually addressing the internal belief system for that client and what he started noticing was some really specific language that was coming up and that was his individual client saying a part of me wants you to know that this is not going to work.
00:07:28
Speaker
right? Or a part of me wants you to know that we don't trust you, right? And we start to understand and notice this sort of different language that an individual is talking in a sort of collective language, right? So a part of me, we believe, you know, this is not right for us, etc. So he sort of twinged on to that language change and sort of thought, wait a minute, can you talk to me about what that is about?
00:07:56
Speaker
And so eventually it fruitioned into a much broader model over the next 20 years or so from the 80s up until the early 2000s where a lot of research was being done into these types of language. And what was found is that people, individuals tend to have a very strong sense of what's known as multiplicity.
00:08:19
Speaker
right, that the brain is not actually made up of one singular entity with lots of different layers and levels, which is partially true, to some extent, but what he sort of posited was that the brain is actually made up of lots of different parts, lots of different sub-personalities that are coexisting with each other internally, and that all have deep, strong, complicated and complex relationships within our own selves.
00:08:49
Speaker
So it's not just that we have one mind that thinks differently all the time. We have lots of different sub-minds that have all of their own different strengths. They do things really, really well and they also hold very strong beliefs about particular things which can make them quite rigid in certain situations and contexts.
00:09:11
Speaker
And it's actually in getting to know these different parts of us. That's where parts language comes up. You might hear internal family systems being referred to as parts work or parts language that as we get to know those different parts.
00:09:27
Speaker
then we actually start to see a change in the internal relationship. And so that's where it came from his family systems background applied internally has nothing to do with our family, you know, much than the name sort of suggests, but it's our internal family.
00:09:43
Speaker
that we're starting to get to know. Yeah, that's funny because I think when you first think of it, you're thinking of family therapy. You're thinking of the individual mom, dad, brother, sister, whatever. But that's not what it is. It's the internal structures of the mind and the soul, whatever you want to call it, the psyche that creates these different parts. And it's funny, I use
00:10:07
Speaker
So I'm not trained in IFS. I know a little bit I've read the snapshots or the cliff notes of IFS. Just because as therapists, we can't be experts at everything because there's a lot of different models.
00:10:22
Speaker
I use parts language all the time. Whether I'm using it correctly, I think there's other modalities that do use parts. You know, it's not just IFS, but I think there's some similarities between the different modalities of what parts is. I mean, because often it's very common to have, I'll say, hey, a part of you wants to get better, right? A part of you's here and showing up and wind you the work. And yet there's another part of you that's worried or afraid or anxious or, you know, whatever.
00:10:51
Speaker
whatever the defense mechanism might be for protecting self, even if they're in a difficult place, but it's kind of the fear of the unknown. So I do that all the time because often that's how we feel. We have this kind of dichotomy, this kind of back and forth and, you know, these in opposition of change. And so it's very common to have this distance. So I use it in that way. So tell me more, I'm curious more about in IFS,
00:11:18
Speaker
What are the names of the parts? I think from what I understand there's very specific names given to these kind of internal parts of self that might differ than what I'm used to or maybe what someone else might be used to if they've done therapy or done parts work, quote unquote, depending on the different modalities. So I'm curious, what are the parts and what is their role or function? Sure. So you're actually using two really important pieces of language that you're talking about parts and you're talking about self.
00:11:44
Speaker
And I heard you sort of mentioned there a couple of times that our parts tend to try to protect ourself, right? And they're very much sort of triggered by fear and anxiety and all of these sorts of things, as well as joy and happiness and love. Our parts sort of experience the whole range and gamut of emotions. But as you say, yes, there are certainly categories that sort of sub-categorized in our parts. And there's three core parts.
00:12:11
Speaker
The first one is called an exile. Now, this is typically one that you don't get to meet them very often. All right. And that will become clear in a second. But basically, these are the parts of us. They might be younger parts or teenage parts or even some
00:12:30
Speaker
older parts as well. So we do tend to age parts if you do the work. And basically, it's these different these different exiled parts have a really core belief about what you about the world based on some experience you've had at some point in your life, whether that's been a real experience, or it's just been some internalized thought pattern or belief system.
00:12:52
Speaker
Not that you've sort of experienced yourself, but that's might have happening in the world or someone's told you something about it when you were a kid and you internalize that and what happens is is that when that part internalize that belief it might be you know common ones might be things like
00:13:09
Speaker
worthlessness after trauma or I'm a bad son or daughter because mum yelled at me or I got some form of punishment somewhere along the line that teaches that part of your lesson and they get stuck in that memory, right? And what they do is that these emotions that were coming up for you as a kid,
00:13:34
Speaker
then tend to get sort of stuck in the body with that part, with that belief. But what happens is, is that these other two different types of parts, all right, one is called a firefighter, the other is called the manager, they learn to protect that exile, because we don't want to feel the bad feeling, we don't want to feel the sadness or the grief or the loss or the pain or the anger or whatever has been exiled, right?
00:14:02
Speaker
And so what happens is the manager learns to sort of preempt those belief systems, they preempt the pain, and they do everything in their power to proactively cause the person to avoid that pain. Right. And so they get lodged in these sort of roles in our lives that end up pretty much becoming
00:14:26
Speaker
Basically, our personalities, right? It's the front facing things. It's what people normally see. These are managers can be things like performance, I've got to do really, really well, right in school, I got to do really, really well in work, you might have managers who are very critical.
00:14:42
Speaker
All right, so don't do that. You'll be a failure and it's trying to protect you from some other type of pain and these managers are characterized by their proactivity of avoiding that pain. The other top is what I mentioned is a firefighter.
00:14:58
Speaker
and these parts are reactive parts, right? This is typically when something outside of our control or a manager hasn't quite succeeded in avoiding something and some pain comes up. Think a new relationship or a relationship breakdown when you're a little bit older.
00:15:14
Speaker
Um, it might bring up some of those sort of exiles. It might trigger some of those exiles. And the firefighter goes, we don't want to feel that. So we come up with a series of behaviors that help us to avoid, that help us to suppress those feelings. All right. And these are typically things like alcohol.
00:15:33
Speaker
drugs, sex, work, anything that is used to sort of avoid or suppress those sort of pains. And so you end up with these three different sort of cycles that happen. A manager is constantly trying to avoid the pain and work around it.
00:15:52
Speaker
an exile will be triggered, a firefighter will then try to douse the flames per se, and put fire out. And so that we start to notice and this is all happening subconsciously in our mind, right? This is this is not some big grand movie that we see, you know, every day happening in our mind. It's very, very conscious. It's all happening very internally. And
00:16:15
Speaker
So a lot of the process is just simply about bringing awareness to those different dynamics and those different patterns around the different parts of you that might be presenting sort of in any given situation. So a bit long-winded, I suppose, but it's a very complex kind of model, right? There's more moving parts. And the fourth sort of element to it, I suppose, that's separate to those parts is what you were sort of referring to, which is self.
00:16:43
Speaker
And I'm happy to go into that if you know that. So how does IFS define self in comparison to the manage eggs on firefighter? Yeah, so what ended up happening with dig back in the 80s was that even after all of that parts language even after all of the Uncovering of these unconscious patterns and unconscious parts there was always
00:17:05
Speaker
What a client would discover or call or refer to as the self right? That's that's me free from my parts free from those cycles free from those patterns and dynamics. There is me at my core right?
00:17:22
Speaker
And that is that is unbroken it is Completely healed and it has the power to lead and if we're leading from that place of self Then we're able to sort of navigate our parts and our system in a way that can be much more healthy and much more aligned to our goals right not not from fear of protection or fear of being triggered and so what he what he realized was is that
00:17:50
Speaker
if we can ask those parts, we can ask those systems to take a step back away long enough that what that self is able to do, and it's, it's hard because it sounds like a part, but it's not a part that self can step in and can lead from there, right? If we can build enough trust around that, then people can,
00:18:14
Speaker
can draw on that resource of the self and know how to manage that system in any given moment. And so it's not necessarily that our system is protecting ourself. It's almost as if ourself has been pushed to the side so many times for so long in our life that these parts of us just don't trust it anymore. We don't trust that core anymore. And so if we're able to create space, if we're able to create awareness, we can take that step back enough.
00:18:43
Speaker
that that self can then step in and, and do some of that healing work and really see the exile, right? Really see what that pain is and really learn to heal it. And there is a process in doing that in the model, which is very exciting. It's not just a mindfulness based model. So a lot of issues that I had in the past was, you know, person centered therapy, what I was trained in, it's very much like,
00:19:09
Speaker
let's just listen to your story and that will be enough. You will know what to do. But a lot of times it's just, it doesn't go far enough to really be able to support a person just listening to their story. If there's gotta be action, there's gotta be some process of healing at the end of that, that gives that person a new capacity, a new skill, a new mechanism to be able to do things differently moving forward. And that's what I love about IFS is that
00:19:39
Speaker
There is a self and that self has the capacity to heal and change and grow a person from the inside completely free from therapists, from family, from all those places. You do not need to step outside of your own internal experience to know what to do moving forward. If you can access that internal part of you, that unbroken healed completely.
IFS Training and Certification Challenges
00:20:05
Speaker
beautiful part of you and I think if I'm hearing it right and you know the model more than I it's funny here you're talking I'm hearing you know my brain is going to all the different my frameworks of you know attachment and EMDR and and you know all these different because I'm very much I have a you know eclectic I guess in these different modalities that they they all there's less overlap
00:20:30
Speaker
There are a lot of these, these modalities and they have maybe some different, some similar, but also different languages and kind of how things start and how they progress. And, um, it's funny hearing it. It's like, Oh yeah, that's, that's sounds like shame. Like there's shame. It's like, you know, it's like, that's the exile, right? Yeah.
00:20:46
Speaker
That's how I'm thinking. It's like, oh, that's a shame narrative. Like I'm not enough. I'm worthless. I'm broken. I'm fill in the blank. And then we have these parts that avoid and we turn to things to kind of distract from the pain. And so we get stuck in different things. You know, whether we become, we work or we get into drugs or we just fill our life with just busyness.
00:21:07
Speaker
but we're trying to not see the shame because it started so long ago, whether a real experience, implicit messages or explicit things happening or implied messages, societal messages that we now believe that we are somehow worthless and perhaps need to prove ourselves, right? So we do things to prove ourselves, but inevitably what we find is that, well, they do, but they still feel they're not enough until we actually do the healing work and address the shame and the trauma or whatever it might be.
00:21:35
Speaker
It's funny hearing the model kind of flush out a bit. And knowing, and from my end, knowing that you're working EMDR as well, it's becoming really popular at least in the IFS circles that those two modalities seem to work and co-exist really, really well. Yeah. Or a number of IFS therapists who are also equally trained in EMDR.
00:21:58
Speaker
And the more I learn about EMDR on the opposite end from you right now, right? You're the EMDR. Yeah, I'm on that path. You're that way on this way is that there are so many overlaps. And that's what I actually really, really like about this model is that, you know, um, it's simply, it's simply a collection of language as is everything to try to explain that sort of internal, um, dynamic and understanding of what's going on.
00:22:24
Speaker
but it's so applicable across to my training in person-centered therapy, right? So person-centered Rogerian therapy, you know, I'm not the one who's here to fix it, you are all trained in it, you know, it's very easy. Yeah, we're all, and that's all part of basic training is like Rogerian, just this person said, let them do the work, which to some degree it did. For some people, that's it. That's what they need. They just need that kind of mirror and like, yeah, you got it and they're fine. But I've also found,
00:22:53
Speaker
which is why you get further training, is we need to further train ourselves because not everybody's going to be able to be addressed with this one Rogerian modality that is, well, they need more, which is why I got trained in EMDRs, because I need to really have some tools here to specifically deal with some significant trauma and help them. Give me a process. Don't just give me the values, give me the process, right? And that's what IFS certainly offers me, is sort of that process and that understanding.
00:23:23
Speaker
But all the same sort of things, unconditional positive regard, the client knows what the client needs. We just need to sort of support them to get there. Right? That unconditional positive regard, that communication, listening skills, all of those sort of safety elements that come from basic training all get applied over, which I really, really love about the model. Whereas when you're moving into like psychodynamic or Jungian sort of theories, it's a lot of like basic stuff that you're relearning.
00:23:50
Speaker
Um, you know, in those sort of, and they're the same, the decades worth of training just to sort of becoming an analyst in any of those sort of traditional models. So that's, that's certainly one of the reasons that I've leaned into IFS is that the language is super important to my training. Um, but also like we're seeing like IFS yoga.
00:24:09
Speaker
instructors, we're seeing IFS, sort of EMDR therapists, we're seeing IFS and sort of emotions focused therapy, you know, that real somatic kind of understanding of where do these parts live in our body, right? And so there's all these intersections and overlaps that I find to be really helpful for me as I train, because I'm learning one core model of internal family systems and parts work language, but then I'm able to sort of branch off and
00:24:38
Speaker
and find other tools and modalities that sort of work for me and my clients. That's not something that's completely separate.
00:24:46
Speaker
I don't need to go back and do two or three or four years masters in psychoanalytic psychotherapy to become a sort of, you know, go down that path, right? Which has a very different understanding of, you know, the therapist is a blank slate and, you know, we're not in the room and all of that sort of stuff. So it's a really interesting model, right? But it's also sort of starting to pick up a lot of popularity.
00:25:14
Speaker
and sort of the pop psychology culture and research and psychedelics. It's moving very much into a psychedelic sort of spiritual space as well, which I'm not super aware of. I haven't done a lot of that research, but very exciting, you know, for a lot of people.
00:25:33
Speaker
Yeah, and it's, you know, like you said, psychodynamic, like the Rogerian stuff, it very much is, I think, it kind of really, he has his hand in everything. As far as anything, it's person-centered. I mean, unless you're a traditional psychoanalyst, which those people still exist at the schools you can go to. It's very specific. It's very particular. I personally want to go down that
00:25:58
Speaker
Path but again people do and that's hey dude that works for you. Yeah, it's just not my It's not how I how I think and how I operate in the room with therapy But I mean EMDR as persons and that's why I did attachment focus the MDR as well It's even more so at person-centered not that if you don't you're I mean people with regular EMDR totally fine But attachment focus has this other
00:26:20
Speaker
that whole other layer of like, we are very much so into that secure attachment and then very person centered and very client led, but we also had a model to help them get out. Like we have a path, like we have a very, EMDR is very like, here's the path. These are the steps. Let's do the steps. This is the step. I mean, to some degree, there's a step process with the EMDR, however,
00:26:45
Speaker
We also allow the brain to heal, much like, I'm thinking the little parallel here, and I'm sorry people, if you're getting lost in the weeds, but this is very much therapy talk, but I think it's fascinating because it's like yourself that you're referring to as a self that is kind of the, it's almost like before it was wounded, it sounds like before the world wounded it, like the core self, that's how I'm interpreting it, is this is who we truly are. Like we know that we have value, we have worth that we don't have to,
00:27:11
Speaker
be so anxious you know trying to predict every possible outcome or completely avoid but we kind of know that I'm okay with who I am in my being and I can't navigate it so that self is often how we treat the brain in EMDR that the brain knows how to heal itself we're just all I'm doing as EMDR therapists is I'm helping facilitate keeping us on target and helping activate the different parts in this case actually activating the emotional self that's our
00:27:38
Speaker
the mental self, the body self. And we're activating these different areas and essentially lighting them up. So their whole being is activated in the the memory, traumatic memory to help being healing and the brain. I'm just kind of letting it go. All I do is kind of check in from time. Hey, how, you know, you know, the classic thing we say is what do you get now? And then the client says something and we say, okay, go keep moving. And then we just kind of sit back.
00:28:01
Speaker
And we allow the brain, this self, I guess would be similar to just heal itself because the brain is powerful to do its own work. It's just we're helping unlock it a bit with the bilateral stimulation and everything else. But, you know, that's what I'm hearing the self is like, it's that unwounded self, that, that not shame based self, but the true self of, I know who I am. And then we have these things that come along and then kind of cloud, like I said, pushes it aside and kind of gets lost. Almost like you said, we don't trust it.
00:28:32
Speaker
We learned to say this is not familiar in a way. This is more familiar, like maybe the exile is more familiar, that the shame message is more true, quote unquote, because that's what we've experienced, quote unquote, more regularly maybe in our life and the messages we received or what we interpreted. So it's so funny, my brain, I'm thinking of my lens and putting it on. So it's definitely a model.
00:29:00
Speaker
I think when I'm done with the MDR, I want to go and get some, at least maybe level one. How many levels is training, by the way, for those lists? Gosh, training is, I notice in myself right now, part coming up that's quite frustrated by the training process of IFS. I've been on a wait list for about 18 months now for level one. Wow. And not much insight for me, although it does seem to be about a two, two and a half year wait, at least here in Australia.
00:29:30
Speaker
Just to get into that level one, which is the first level of certification. There are three different levels. So the one little two level three and then certified on top of that. I think once you get through level one, it's much you've got much less wait time because they're running equal amounts of groups, but you've got far less people coming in.
00:29:49
Speaker
at least that's my understanding people seem to climb the ranks quite quickly once they're in from my external perspective because I'm not in so I don't I'm not fully sure of that but there's a level before level one which seems to be a little bit more popular at the moment because because Richard Schwartz has been on big podcasts like Tim Ferriss show and you know and and Aubrey Marcus and
00:30:15
Speaker
A few others that I can't remember off the top of my head. It's starting to gain a huge amount of popularity in trauma healing groups.
00:30:23
Speaker
through the therapy groups. And so there's a lot of people trying to come in to do level one. But there are a number of other sort of trainings that have been offered online, in terms of groups and stuff, which won't get you a certification level one from the Institute of Internal Family Systems. But you can sort of class yourself in IFS informed.
00:30:46
Speaker
So I've done the training, I've read the books, I've read the textbooks. A big part of it is I do my own therapy in IFS with an IFS trained therapist. So I've been doing that now for over a year myself. I do supervision. That's easier for me to get into. I do supervision in an IFS supervision group and I have an IFS supervisor who I go to for clinical
00:31:09
Speaker
Consults and anything that I need to work on there in the counseling office, but I'm just not level one trained yet. So still on that wait list that but yeah, once you get into that level one, then there you sort of work your way up from there. Yeah, which is kind of frustrating because when you find the model that you really really love.
00:31:31
Speaker
and works really, really well for you and I love the language myself. It's just completely shifted my life in a really positive and profound way. And now for a short break.
00:31:43
Speaker
So if you're looking for ways to support the show and my YouTube channel, head on over to buy me a copy.com forward slash therapy for dads. There you can make a one time donation or join the monthly subscription service to support all that I'm doing at the intersection of fatherhood and mental health. And all the proceeds go right back into all the work that I'm doing into production, into
00:32:05
Speaker
continue to grow the show to bring on new guests. So again, head on over to buy me a copy.com forward slash therapy for dads. Thanks. And let's get back to the show.
00:32:17
Speaker
Well, the question, we could go here. Yeah. Um, cause I think it'd be a great question is, you know, why do IFS and, and as a man, like I wonder if you could maybe speak to whether your own experience as a man having IFS and the draw and how it works with like maybe some of the traditional barriers that men have to face or kind of some of the stigmas that we face or stereotypes or difficulties typically
Men's Mental Health and Stigma in Australia
00:32:40
Speaker
men faced even.
00:32:40
Speaker
coming to therapy. In fact, we just had a conversation quickly about men in Australia. You mentioned 30% less likely to actually even come to therapy, which in the States is, I don't know if it's the exact percentage, but men also are less likely to go to therapy in general versus women. I don't know the exact number, but I'm sure it's around a similar number, my guess. But I'm wondering if you could speak to that a bit, whether from your own
00:33:06
Speaker
personal or anecdotal experience working with men either way. But I'd be curious to see like, since we do, this is therapy for dad. So maybe this can help a dad who might need to find a therapist and why, why would he want this? So I suppose what sort of comes up for me is, I'm just checking in. There's a lot of, at least in Australia, there's a lot of stigma around men's mental health.
00:33:36
Speaker
right. So I grew up on a farm from the country, regional New South Wales. I went to all boys boarding school for six years. I spent two years in the in the army straight pretty much straight after school. I then worked in a prison for three years and then worked exclusively with men in the community for another three years. So I was very wrapped up in this sort of very sort of masculine culture here in Australia. And
00:34:05
Speaker
Whilst it was never, at least here, it was never, no one ever said, don't go to therapy. No one ever said, don't go to counseling. No one ever said, don't get mental health support. But it was very much those sort of external messages and the expectations that peer groups and, and, and when I was a child adult sort of had was like, oh, that person goes to therapy or, um, you know,
00:34:31
Speaker
just toughen up, mate. So sort of messages that we very much got. It was not condoned. I didn't have anyone say, oh, you should go and get support, or oh, you should go and get help, or these are your options, and these are the different types of things. What do you think sounds right for you? Do you like body base kind of stuff? How do you feel? Like none of that. There's no positive messages. And it's not necessarily anyone's fault, per se, growing up in the early 2000s.
00:35:00
Speaker
It was very common. I didn't know anyone who had that sort of upbringing. I didn't know anyone who knew anything about attachment. I didn't know any parents who were kind of trying to attune or anything like that. It was very much, you know, these are boys that teenage boys let them do their thing. They'll do their thing. They'll find their way kind of thing. So there's a lot of like core experiences that happen over those sort of years. I remember as a child growing up very
00:35:26
Speaker
isolated on a farm, my parents both worked very, very hard. So they were away a lot of the time, my sister might have an older sister, she went to boarding the school for three years. So I was very much alone, you know, between sort of nine and 12, at least is my experience of it, you know, where I was very much didn't have didn't feel like I had a lot of guidance, I didn't feel like I had a lot of
00:35:48
Speaker
lessons around mental health and things like that. But I was experiencing things like being lonely is right. That's that's the normal thing to live on a farm to to grow up. And so I and so that as an example, I internalized a bit of a
00:36:05
Speaker
Being independent is normal and good. Being disconnected and doing things on your own is normal and good. Being self-sufficient is normal and good and even praised by some people. So as a kid, even as a 9-year-old, 10-year-old, 11-year-old kid, it was very much like this is how to be and who to be and what to do to be right, to be loved, to be accepted.
00:36:32
Speaker
And then you get sent, then I got sent to boarding school, six years, you know, very much reinforce that idea. You're on your own, your family's eight hours away, right? Something happens to you. You know, you got one boarding coordinator for 200 boys, right? No one's coming anytime soon.
00:36:49
Speaker
right? So you have to make your own way. And you're basically just bouncing off other 12, 13, 14, 15 year old boys in exactly the same situation. So a lot of these sort of core beliefs into my life, teenage years, sort of got solidified without much sort of challenging or guidance or anything like that. So now as a 30, nearly 30 year old, in a couple of weeks, I'm starting to unpack and sort of think to myself, wait a minute,
00:37:17
Speaker
I've been in a relationship for nearly 10 years now, married for six of them. And my go-to is disconnection. My go-to is avoidance. My go-to in conflict is very much, well, you go over there and do your thing, and I'll go over there and do my thing, and give me a couple of days or weeks or months to process this. We'll figure that out. And so there's a part of me that just feels, if I get seen, then I won't be sort of accepted.
00:37:46
Speaker
accepted or it's too vulnerable or it's easier to go your own way, right? Which is very remote. Because that's what you know. I mean, like you said, it's yeah, cause we did to survive. It's like I go away. Yeah, exactly. I just do, I just, I'm alone. I just do my own thing. Don't worry about it. I got, I got me, you do you. I got me.
00:38:09
Speaker
And so as I, as I have grown up, it's taken a lot of time for me to get in touch with that nine year old part of me and talk to him and say, we don't have to do that anymore. Right? That's not a role, right? That you need to have anymore. And the protectors that I have around that, like my manager is very much avoid conflict, people, please. Right? Because that's the only way that I will hold connection with other people without
00:38:38
Speaker
needing to really be vulnerable or be seen right that part of me and the firefighter is that if people start to really ask questions of me or if they really start conflict with me my firefighter just says no go away cut them off dig it dig your head into work etc etc and that was it just don't address it don't engage you know it was um avoid avoid avoid
00:39:02
Speaker
But that was all to protect that very young part of me. They didn't know how to be seen. They didn't know how to have conflict. They didn't know that it was okay to be in relationship on a deeper level than that sort of surface. And so what IFS has sort of allowed me to do is put language to that dynamic to meet those parts of me where they're at.
00:39:24
Speaker
And it's taking me, you know, it's 18 months sort of thing, but of doing this work, but, um, and, and finally being able to notice when that exile has been triggered, myself can come in and say, it's okay. Hmm. Just calm down. You can do the conflict. You can ask for what you need. You can, you know, whatever it might be right in that moment. Yeah. And so what, what, what I really love about the model is that,
00:39:52
Speaker
having that belief system about individuality is right and good, right? And connection is bad, right? Connection is vulnerable, right? Is, it's just a part of me. It's just one part. It's just one part in a larger system with lots of other different parts and lots of other different sort of beliefs. Right. And that part served a purpose.
00:40:19
Speaker
It's, it absolutely served a purpose and it, and it makes sense. What purpose, you know, we're going to generalize here just for the sake, but in general, what purpose did, did, does, does, did it serve?
00:40:35
Speaker
What purpose does it do the managers? Yeah. Yeah. Like the purpose is essentially what? So I would say that my manager, which is the part that, um, avoids connection, right? And the part that sort of people pleases, um, is that, uh, uh, uh, one of the core parts of the internal family systems model is this idea of connection. So up behind me here,
00:41:02
Speaker
There are what's known as the eight C's, right? And this is a really cool part of internal family systems where I'm just going to turn around and read them so I get them right. We've got clarity, calmness, curiosity, confidence, creativeness, connectedness, courage, and compassion.
00:41:26
Speaker
And they are the eight C's that embodies the self, right? If you are feeling into those areas of your life, then you are embodying self-energy. If you are doing anything other than those eight things, then you are very much likely in a part blended with one of your parts, right?
00:41:46
Speaker
And so those managers, so what we know is that those eight things are the things that we're striving to live in, right? That's the roadmap of the goal. That's the road map. That's the goal. That's where we're trying to embody self-energy as much as we possibly can.
00:42:02
Speaker
And the purpose of of therapy and IFS therapy in a lot of ways is how do we provide the client with as much self energy as possible that they can call upon in hard times in those difficult moments where those parts are so strongly blended and they're kind of the language I don't want to get into the weeds even the language is called polarization right when these parts are so polarized so I've got this
00:42:28
Speaker
I've got this exile that says, I want to be loved, but I don't know how to be loved. And then I've got a manager that says, yeah, but that's painful. So we're going to not go there. Right. And then we've got a firefighter that says, all right, we went there. I don't want to be there anymore. Let's run away. But we can see this dynamic. We're not calm. We're not connected. We're not compassionate. We're not curious. Yeah. Or anything where everything but those things, those things.
00:42:55
Speaker
It sounds like we're acting, really, it's a defense mechanism of self-preservation and survival. So what do we do to survive? Well, I get busy with work and I turn off my emotions and I'm thinking of like attachment, my lens is all attachment, right, secure attachment. Yeah, absolutely. Versus like the anxious avoid and attachment style, where we avoid to avoid the, you know, we learn to over rely on self because we learned that people weren't safe to actually see us and so we just kind of pull away.
00:43:21
Speaker
Classically, men tend to be the withdrawers, we call them, right? Emotionally, now men avoid. That's safer. Wait until everything calms down, then come back. Then come back. Versus the anxious attachment, which is that critical checking in. I'm not loved. It's so interesting hearing this stuff.
00:43:44
Speaker
It's a defense, it's to protect self, right? I mean, really, the manager and the firefighter is protecting from pain, which is the exile, which in turn is really trying to – which came about because this became more normal and familiarized because the self got lost implicitly, explicitly, whatever you want to call it.
00:44:02
Speaker
And so these parts learn to not trust those self-energy, right?
Integrating IFS with Other Therapeutic Models
00:44:07
Speaker
That we know it's kind of there. We know we have the capacity to do things differently, but it becomes very difficult to trust it, right? Because this dynamic, even though it's causing us so much pain and so many problems in our life, as you say, that familiarity of that, right? It's, it's at least, you know, the devil we know, right? And so a lot of that sort of therapeutic energy
00:44:32
Speaker
gets put into allowing people to cultivate some kind of connection I suppose or reconnection with those parts of you. All right, or with the self in this case right to actually allow the parts to lead.
00:44:50
Speaker
Because if we do a meditation or if we do some work, you know, in therapy around the parts, if we actually, what we do is we speak to them, right? We'll say, well, what is it that you want? What is it that you're protecting? What role do you have? If we ask them what they want to do, 10 times out of 10, they don't want to do it.
00:45:11
Speaker
every time. If we think about how hard our protectors work and managing our day-to-day life or putting out fires every single day through whatever means, then all of a sudden it's really tiring. It's really exhausting work, right? It takes up a lot of our mental energy, not being who we want to be, but trying not to feel things we don't like.
00:45:37
Speaker
So if so a lot of this process is around creating some comfort or creating some distance between those protective parts those managers and those firefighters so that we in self-energy can attune to the exile and meet that that parts needs.
00:45:59
Speaker
I can go back to that exile of me that feels so disconnected from the world and feels like I can't be seen in the world because I was so alone for such a long time. Through nobody's fault, this is not about blame. This is very important. It's not about blame. This is about understanding that I can go back and I can say, well, where did you learn this? What do you need from me now at 30? What is it that you need from me now at 30?
00:46:27
Speaker
More often than not, and my parts certainly do, they can take me back to very specific memories.
00:46:32
Speaker
in my life that I may have not had any conscious memory of in such a long time until I attuned to these parts. We can actually go back there and we can do things, bring healing and then we bring them back to the future with us. We bring these exiled parts back to the future with us where they can live with us in a new role. They no longer have to feel fearful or worried or lonely or concerned.
00:46:58
Speaker
and they get to do something new and oftentimes that's like play and joy and you know, one of my pilots wants to live in a candy shop, right? Don't ask me why, there was no candy shop in a small country town Moree where I grew up, but for him, that's it, right? If it wasn't doing the lonely thing, it would be doing the joy thing.
00:47:24
Speaker
So we allow these parts of us to give us new memory, but we also familiarize ourselves so much with how they feel in our body that we now learn and identify when they're coming up for us before it gets too bad, before the managers and the firefighters have to really step in. And so as the exile takes on a new role, the other parts of us get, they say, well, I don't need to manage that anymore. I don't need to avoid, you know, telling my partner how I feel.
00:47:53
Speaker
I don't need to do that. So we kind of say all right. Well, what do you want to do differently? Yeah, it we learn to give these parts new roles and when I say we it's probably very important to recognize similar to EMDR and similar to what you were talking about.
00:48:10
Speaker
I'm not that guy. I don't do that for the client. The client does all of this. I simply facilitate or guide some questions and if there are parts that are so strong and are super defensive and are really polarizing at really extreme points,
00:48:30
Speaker
We're going to have to do a lot more work around some of those extreme parts than we would others that are less polarized. And that's one of the key areas. We're just trying to reduce the extremities. We're trying to have our parts live in a little bit more stability rather than in such rigidity and extremeness, right? Yeah.
00:48:51
Speaker
Yeah, and that can be a really good place to start. That's that's sort of how I've been trained is that notice when you fall into extreme patterns, not necessarily the mundane everyday managers that can be a little bit harder to identify, you know notice, you know, when the last time was that you
00:49:13
Speaker
had a bad day and you went straight to the bottle of wine at the end of the night or something and check in with that part around what it was trying to achieve by having wine. And then we can work our way backwards. And those extremes can be
00:49:30
Speaker
All the way up to active suicidal ideation. It can be extreme drug use. It can be obsessive compulsive kind of attitudes, which are all sort of points for us to sort of identify with and be able to work back from.
00:49:49
Speaker
Yeah, it sounds so funny. It very much sounds like I'm doing an attachment and stuff in EMDR. It's identifying what the person needed because part of what we do in EMDR is called resourcing where we build up this kind of internal resource of
00:50:06
Speaker
nurturing figures, protectors, and then the wise figures where we actually build these internal system, essentially these internal people, which is really building on the ego strength and affect regulation where we're creating these
00:50:27
Speaker
whether real or imaginary or something, people sit, you know, again, nurturers, protectors and wisdom figures because often we needed something in the past trauma memory where we didn't have it when we were nine. It's like, okay, what does that nine-year-old need? Classic question we ask if we're reprocessing something, you know, what do they need now, you know?
00:50:47
Speaker
We ask these different questions, there's Socratic questioning, there's different things like, what do you think they need now? Or if it was a friend, what would you do? And so we do these ways and often they'll bring in this person and say, oh, we're going to heal it because we could repair that developmental or attachment repair, that wound. And then also now the memory kind of closes up and then it's like it's connected. So it's crazy to hear. Well, it sounds awesome. It's exactly it is. It's very, very similar because I suppose one of the differences is that
00:51:15
Speaker
or that I hear and it might not be true. But we what I hear in IFS is in that sort of healing process in what we call unburdening. So you I think the EMDR language from memory is cognitive distortion.
00:51:32
Speaker
Well, that would be it's CBT core. Yeah. What's the EMDR language around like that core wound? I am hopeless from memory. I've only watched a few EMDR sessions in training. Yeah. Well, I mean the we were the core wound like the negative like the shame belief that negative.
00:51:54
Speaker
Yeah. Shame belief that it all works anyway. Yeah. So that would be the exile for us. Right. Gotcha. Yeah. We bring the exile back, like you say, to that memory, but we also bring our self now back to the memory. Yeah. And then, and then the, the, the,
00:52:15
Speaker
in a child or the exile gets that opportunity to do differently in that memory, what it wanted to do or could have done differently to not be so wounded. And then if once it feels comfortable, then the present self also gets to add anything around what it could do differently or say something differently to that person or to that thing or in that situation.
00:52:40
Speaker
And then once it all feels resolved, we bring that back to the now, as you say, with that, with that exhaust. So it's very similar. I really love how the similarities there. Yeah. There's definitely overlap. I mean, nothing is different. We do, you know, when we're doing that, we're adding.
00:52:57
Speaker
you know bilateral stimulation and stuff like that to help the brain. Obviously there is a difference there with EMDR as we're doing the tapping or the eye movement too to kind of help the brain even get unstuck more. They would say according to research more effectively and quickly. I think that's where those IFS EMDR therapists really love.
00:53:19
Speaker
When they can blend those two models together and use the what's the best of both worlds, right? Yeah, it's like how do we take this and boop? Yeah that harmony. Yeah, I think I've heard criticisms from those from about EMDR in that way around.
00:53:40
Speaker
bypassing some of those strong protectors. So in my language, like those managers, we get their permission first, we work with them to ease and relax enough in those sessions to step away and give us permission to work with the exile, which I think I've heard, and I think it's probably just poorly done EMDR or poorly trained EMDR.
00:54:07
Speaker
might try to bypass some of those strong protectors to try to get in to the core memory or the core wound. And that's where I think IFS and EMDR do really, really well is that you work with the protectors. We're not shaming any of these parts. There's no such thing as a bad part.
00:54:28
Speaker
Everything serves a purpose. I guess the attachment piece would say you did what you needed to survive. Whatever that it was, was your way of surviving, navigating that trauma, that season, that whatever it was, that's how you, everything that served a purpose to get you here essentially. It all served a purpose. But now we need to understand is what you're doing now actually helping you now.
00:54:55
Speaker
Usually it's not, it's usually creating more suffering and pain, but it's like then it did though, you know, when you were seven or when you were 12 or when like it served, it was your survival mechanism and your brain took over and it did what it needed and you got out or whatever, got through it. So I'm wondering, I'm conscious of the time because I know that you have a session coming up soon.
00:55:21
Speaker
I guess, any closing thoughts on anything specifically with men in this and why you think it might work? You know, we did talk about kind of some of the stuff that men face coming in with like, you know, you don't go therapy, you don't talk to people, all these things that I've talked about on length on my podcast about the different barriers men face. But I'm wondering, what have you seen, anything specifically that IFS has been benefit or not a benefit of working with men in general?
00:55:53
Speaker
I probably say of my clients, personal experience only, no research here, but anecdotally 50-50 probably my clients, I would say of the fellows, some of them really drawn
Adapting IFS for Male Clients
00:56:06
Speaker
to it. They like the language a lot. They like that capacity to differentiate the different parts and the language that it's used and the fact that it's not who they are.
00:56:18
Speaker
is a really big winning strategy for a lot of my clients. I got to admit though, some who are maybe a little bit more attuned to traditional or identify more closely with traditional masculinity that sort of don't be weak, don't be vulnerable. It's already quite challenging to get them through the door. And once they're there, we know in Australia that
00:56:47
Speaker
You know about 46% of all men who go to therapy here in Australia leave what they refer to as prematurely so they'll leave before they feel like they need to leave or leave before the symptoms or.
00:57:03
Speaker
their sort of experiences resolved or healed. And that's again, for a number of reasons, predominantly like a not a good fit with their therapist, which I think is great. I think if men feel comfortable to leave because they don't fit with their therapist, I think that's wonderful. But not preferably not stopping altogether, if they're not feeling comfortable. One of those is very much that sort of and 25% of men who go to therapy here in Australia,
00:57:32
Speaker
They never come back. They go to one session and then they never come back again. And that's again as a result of a number of sort of things where a lot of men feel quite emasculated. A lot of men don't feel like their therapist really is understanding them or understanding the complexity of the male experience.
00:57:53
Speaker
They feel like they're trying to be sort of shut down or feminized or whatever. Whatever it is. At least that's what the that's what the language of the research tells us. So I'm also really conscious that if s language is like it's a very big and complex.
00:58:13
Speaker
theory. And it's very, it has a very interesting language to it in terms of parts work, exiles, firefighters, managers, the self, it's very conscious that I ease myself into working with IFS with the men.
00:58:31
Speaker
early because I don't know how long I'm going to have them for. I've always used parts work right in my reflective process with them. I hear a part of you that does this. I hear a part of you that saying that, you know, it seems like these two parts are very polarized that they butt heads a lot, right? You have an ink like addiction, like alcohol and drugs here in Australia, just normal everyday binge drinking culture.
00:58:57
Speaker
over here, like this part of you that's very, you know, that loves going out and loves hitting the piss and loves drinking, but another part of you that wakes up and says, you shouldn't have done that. You know, you feel guilty for shame. You've lost the whole day now. Like it's impacting your relationship. You don't get to see kids or whatever it is. So I still use the language, but probably don't introduce the model super quickly. I tend to get a bit of a wait until I get a bit more buy in myself.
00:59:26
Speaker
Yeah, a little more trust with you. Trust, yeah, rapport building, really just making sure that my clients and I think one of the things that I've learned as well in terms of competency working with men is that men kind of like that strengths-based approach. They like a very practical kind of form of therapy. They like to have the tools given to them at the end of the session and they have, you know, something to do, something to practice.
00:59:54
Speaker
The little structure and model too. Yeah, I found that too. They like to know that there's some tool, something they're learning, which is good. In a way, you have to kind of, you're right, phrasing things sometimes with men, you have to be not cautious, but it's like a slower process.
01:00:14
Speaker
Especially those men that are a little more traditionally like hyper masculine kind of a little on this end Yeah, they could be more wary of some of those things we talked about so some of our introduction could be yeah, you know Even an EMDR even though it's like hey your brain's healing like this is your brain. Yeah with neural pathways and
01:00:34
Speaker
We're creating new neural pathways and all these things. It's like, it's your brain. This is how the brain actually works. And that's a little easier because it's like, here's the science of the brain. It's like, here's why. I get to use that tool sometimes with them and they're like, oh, okay, that makes sense. I get the brain. I'm like, yeah, I remember that. In that moment, I would imagine that for you,
01:00:58
Speaker
You become the the professional you become like in the eyes of the client you become the knowledgeable guide the person who's done the training.
01:01:07
Speaker
somebody that they can sort of trust and learn from and lean into, which I think really lends into the way men like to do therapy. They like to know that the person has the competency. Totally. Right? Especially with some of those working professional men. They want to know that they're going to someone who knows what they're doing. Not that women don't want to know that.
01:01:33
Speaker
But it's it's something with men have noticed that they want to see that someone's they'd like they're they're trained their credential they have it because for them it's like Especially if they're very performance oriented and having it themselves They want to make sure that someone can be as equal, you know, not just equal but up here because they don't want to waste their time Yeah, you know they want someone to know what they're doing. Absolutely. I think there's like a there's like a I always feel not always I mostly feel
01:02:01
Speaker
that there's a little bit of a sense of urgency when I work with men that I don't tend to feel with my female clients. I do think if you're talking broad generalisations and stereotypes that at least here in Australia, women are socialised and raised to at least be more emotionally attuned
01:02:23
Speaker
and have the skills required to come into a therapeutic process with a reflective practice and you know, you know that capacity for self-awareness a little bit more readily my female clients tend to bring stuff to session my male clients tend to get there and say all right, what are we talking about today Matt and
01:02:46
Speaker
And I kind of go, okay, yeah. All right. And some clients I'll need to sort of lean into that and allow that because that's a part of them. That's maybe feeling a little bit untrustworthy in the process when they don't trust themselves in the process or they don't know what to do in the process. And I can recognize that part of them and I can hear that part of them. That's maybe a little bit apprehensive or untrustworthy or still sort of figuring it out. And that's okay. You know, I'm, I'm conscious of that. Um, but you know,
01:03:16
Speaker
my experience with women is that they're less that way. They're a bit more trustworthy at the start for me. And some of them stay exactly the same process. Some of them stay for a long time. I've had clients for nearly two years and I've had other clients will come once or twice.
01:03:34
Speaker
You know, so that personality fit, you know, finding the right therapist finding the right modality. IFS is not for everyone. You know, I'm sure of it, you know, I haven't met anyone yet who hasn't, you know, at least identified with the modality somewhat parts language, but yeah, but it's you know, some people don't like it and that's okay. That's fine.
01:03:56
Speaker
But I'm conscious of the time. I know we gotta we gotta close with Matt. It's been thanks man for just talking about just in one just talking talking about IFS what it is how kind of how it works a little bit of your experience in it personally, I think that was really really cool because we got to get a flavor of kind of what it is
01:04:13
Speaker
what it feels like to kind of those different parts and how it manifests a bit and kind of getting some of the kind of the texture to it, so to speak. And then kind of the goals and kind of the, you know, the eight C's and just this whole perspective. But really what I'm hearing is really helping people be reintegrated and live their
01:04:31
Speaker
Live their full self and be confident in that and like all those I love the eight C's I think that's such a wonderful way and they're yeah those all those things are amazing Yeah, every single one of those C's it's like yeah, that makes sense. That's literally where you want to be. Yeah So thanks for coming on. Thanks for sharing. It's been a pleasure talking to you all the way from a long way I mean, I don't even know for her
01:04:55
Speaker
It's far away. It's a long way away. I had a layover in, I think, Sydney, I want to say, layover. Couldn't get out. I had to stay in the airport, but we were there for a couple hours in the airport. I feel aware, but it was when we were flying to my wife and I, where were we flying? I want to say it was our honeymoon or when we were going to Japan.
01:05:17
Speaker
I think it was on our honeymoon we were going to Thailand so we had to lay over there because it was a cheap flight so yeah. Sounds right, sounds right. Well definitely not Sydney. But yeah, three hours south, three hours south of Sydney. But no, it's been an absolute pleasure to be on and chat shop and I'm really hoping that
01:05:40
Speaker
You know, people can if they're introduced to this model that there's some things there that might resonate with them or if they're interested in it, there's you know, there's podcasts, you know, you're listening to a podcast. So there's podcast galore with Richard Schwartz. There's I'm sure the one inside podcast IFS talks all of that it just to give you more understanding of it.
01:06:00
Speaker
Instagram is absolutely peppered with with ifs therapist these days. They can give a lot of great context and a lot of nuance to the conversation. So I hope I've been able to you know, inform some people.
01:06:16
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's been great. And, you know, I guess it's great to hear you, I think. Yeah. Right. Hear Matt and get to hear about Matt and kind of his journey and a little bit how it affected him. I think that's the realities. It's always good to hear the personal. Yeah. Those stories, because I think those stories matter. I agree. They do. They're real stories. It's going to have to get you on my podcast coming up and share some of yours. Absolutely. Yeah.
01:06:41
Speaker
But hey, blessings to you the rest of your day. So I'm gonna hit end, but man, blessings and thanks for coming on the pod, man. You're a legend. I should probably go and prep for this client who's not here yet. So we're all good. Thanks, man. Thanks for joining and listening today. Please leave a comment and review the show. Dads are tough, but not tough enough to do this fatherhood thing alone.