#810: Terry Real — The Therapist Who Breaks All The Rules

28:05You did it, you always, you never, you're a slob. Okay. All right. So stay in particular, if you're the disgruntled one. But if you've been confronted, B is, yes, I did it. Here's an A. You walk up the same ladder I'm telling you not to do is the disgruntled one. I did it. It's not the first time I've done it. Terry, the kids and I were waiting for you. You knew dinner was at 7. You come waltzing in at 7.45. You don't call. You don't text. It was really rude. You're right. I did that. And I can be late. It's an issue. We know that. And when I do that, I'm being thoughtless. I get caught up in the moment, and I stop thinking about the impact I'm having.

28:50And that's really kind of selfish of me. I do have some selfish tendencies. I'm working on it. Holy shit. Now that's an apology. so if your partner out you you did it before you often do it you never you always as terrible but if you out you oh my god your partner's going wow there's hope this is great it's a funny thing yeah it makes me think of i think it was hurt locker and the bomb diffusing it's just like you know it's like wow nice job nice job with the diffusing and then of course ultimately you should be working on this issue that you say you're going to work on or pay attention to. Tell me if this is geotechnical bullshit.

29:38I'm sorry, but I have another story. One of my clients told me this is a true story. He said, on his wedding day, and I say this, no offense, but particularly for men, on his wedding day, his father-in-law said, let's go for a walk. Okay. He said, son, I got two things for you to master. You master just these two things, your marriage is going to be great. So, okay, pops, I'll buy it. What's your got? He goes, you're really sorry, and you're going to work on it.

30:12Yeah, I imagine that'll give you a lot of payoff over a lot of miles. What is another term that I'd never heard before being exposed to your work, normal marital hatred? I got this from Ed Tronick, infant observational researcher. Ed, along with Barry Brasleton, was the first generation. You know, since Freud, what we said about child development all came from listening to adults. We didn't watch any kids. And he was one of the first people to actually plunk a video camera in front of mothers and infants and then fathers and infants and actually look at what happens. And what he came up with, I borrowed, and it's central to RLT, which is the essential rhythm of all relationships is harmony, disharmony, and repair.

31:01Closeness, disruption, and a return to closeness. That's where the skills come in, how to move from disruption to repair. Our culture doesn't teach it. Our culture doesn't even acknowledge a good relationship is all harmony, just like a good body is yours. or a good body is like a 20-year-old's body. A good sex life is like, you know, what you had when you were two weeks into the relationship. No, all harm is bullshit. Bullshit. One of the things I like about you, Tim, is you tell the truth. You know what? You go to a cocktail party and you're, oh, there's Harry and Shirley. They're in their 80s.

31:40They still have sex. They love each other. One of these days, I'd like to go to a cocktail party and hear, there's Harry and Shirley. They actually split up for a year. He fell in love with another woman. He couldn't take it because she was such a drunk, but then she got into AA and got sober, and the two of them are really doing reasonably well. Aren't they cute? Just once, I'd like to hear that. So we don't deal with reality. You know, the father of couples therapy back in the 50s said the day you turned to the person who was next to you, It was assumed it was your marriage. And you say, this is a mistake.

32:22I've been had. This is not the person I fell in love with. That said, Framo, is the first day of your real marriage. So here's what I want to say about disharmony. You ready? It hurts. It's dark. You can really, really feel like, what the hell did I get myself into? This is such a disappointment. And guess what? Your partner's probably feeling that about you too. So I talk about normal marital hatred when you're in that dark face. You hate your partner, that's okay. Don't kill yourself or her, that's okay. I'll teach you how to get through it, but it's part of the deal for many of us. And here's what I like to say.

33:07I've been going around the world talking about normal marital hatred for, oh my God, what, 30 years. This is true. Not one person has ever come backstage and said, Terry, what do you mean by that?

33:22It's okay, kids. Don't sweat it. You can get through it. It's normal. Relax.

33:30Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors, and we'll be right back to the show. It's the new year, and many of you, no doubt, are planning for the year ahead. I'm doing the same. And of course, one thing that tends to be top of mind is setting financial goals, getting your finances in order. And it's a mess out there. The hyper complexities of the US economy, global economy can be very confusing. And there's a lot of conflicting advice, but saving and investing doesn't have to be complicated. Here's something refreshingly simple to use, and that's Wealthfront. Wealthfront is an app that helps you save and invest your money.

34:05Right now, you can earn 4 % APY, that's annual percentage yield, on your cash from partner banks with the Wealthfront Cash account. That's nearly 10 times the national average, according to FDIC.gov. So don't wait. Earn 4 % APY on your cash today. Plus, it's eligible for up to$8 million in FDIC insurance through partner banks. And when you open an account today, you'll get an extra$50 bonus with a deposit of$500 or more. There are already more than 1 million people using Wealthfront to save more, earn more, and build long-term wealth. So check it out. Visit wealthfront.com slash Tim to get started.

34:42One more time, that's wealthfront.com slash Tim. This is a paid endorsement of Wealthfront. Wealthfront Brokerage isn't a bank. The EAPY is subject to change. For more information, see the episode description.

34:56What are some of the first steps or tools that you would recommend to someone listening who agrees with what you're saying, but has had no models for repair, has never learned how to use any type of approach for repair. And this is something that your direct help and then also your books have really helped me with because I did not grow up in a household with repair, right? It was basically one person screams, then the other person goes to fix, which they don't really want to do, but it's their attempt to basically quell the disaster and fury and that's it. Then everybody's kind of upset and it never gets addressed.

35:34That was the model growing up. What do you suggest to people who want to start with repair? You know, of course, I'm tempted to say, so are you a screamer or a fixer? But I won't. I'll leave that alone. I'm a fixer. I'm not a screamer. Oh, okay. Lucky for your partner. But the problem is the resentment that builds up. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So repair. First of all, I like to say I have a number of bitter pills to swallow. But if you swallow them, things will be a lot better in your life. And here's one of them. Repair is a one-way street. Everybody gets that wrong. It's not a dialogue.

36:17It's not, well, these are your issues with me. Well, these are my issues with you. No. You have your turn, but not then. Take turns. So if you have a disgruntled partner, you are at their service. That's the first thing to master. You know, I like to say, Tim, you're at the customer service window. Somebody comes to the customer service window and says, my microwave doesn't work. They don't want to hear you say, well, my toaster doesn't work. They don't want your excuses. Fix the goddamn microwave. Tend to your partner and bring them back into repair with you. Tend to them. Put yourself aside and tend to them.

36:53What does that look like? Two things. First, do I get it? Listen. Don't argue. Don't rebut. Empty the well. I'm sorry you feel bad. That's beautiful. Compassion. I'm sorry you feel bad. I love you. I don't want you to feel bad. Help me understand. What feels bad? What's it like for you? Okay. And then you reflect. This is what I hear you say. Did I get it? Yeah. Good enough. Good. Two, is there something I could say or do right now that would be helpful? What would you like? Who says that? And then if it's anything short of jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, give it to them. Be generous. Those are the basics.

37:38I could be more specific. Let me ask you a follow-up, which is related to this. when someone is attempting to do this, but they're having trouble biting their tongue because you ask what's upsetting someone or you ask them to describe their feelings. And they say, well, when you did this, this, and this, and you disagree with their assessment of reality, we already talked about where objective reality doesn't exist, but nonetheless, it could trigger visceral response. What is your advice to people who struggle with that? It's like, that isn't a reflection of reality. Come on. And they want to rebut, but they're not supposed to.

38:19How would you suggest they table it? What should they say to themselves? Or do you have any other pieces of advice? Well, we both know you're a nut. Let's investigate exactly what kind of nut you are. Let's get curious. And actually, let's get compassionate. One of the things I say is, no one's a nut to themselves. The paranoid who's crouched under the desk because the Russians have put germs in the ventilating system knows that we're all going to die. And if you knew that there were germs, you'd be under there with them. No one doesn't make sense to themselves. They don't make sense to you. So let go of you and see if you can enter into the world of the person.

39:02When you show up to our interview with a t-shirt, these are the rules of speaking. I make up. We teach people to say what I make up is. No objective reality. What I make up is, you have a very casual feeling about this interview. Don't you know that you're talking to the great Terry Reel? I've had a little formality. I feel really insulted. You're sitting there going, fuck you. Give me a break. If we were partners, you would take a breath and you would go, okay, help me understand. What is it about the t-shirt that was so upsetting to you? And then, okay, so you think it was disrespectful. Did I get that right?

39:41It's like, I know you're a nut. I know that Russians didn't put germs in the ventilating system, but I want to understand you. Look, I'm sorry that hurt your feelings. I didn't mean to be overly informal. And then if you really want an A +, this is really parking your ego at the door, I can understand how you might feel like that. and really what it is is I can understand, Pren, thinking the nutty things you think. If you think that way, that you would feel like that. So give it to them. Be generous. I can understand how you might feel like that. Is there something I could say or do that would help you feel better?

40:19Got it. All right. Very helpful. I wanted to shift gears just a little bit, and we can go in a lot of different directions. We can also come back to repair, because as you said already, I mean, this is practically universally neglected in terms of any type of education that people tend to receive. But we'll park that for a second. I wanted to know what types of deal breakers exist when you work with clients. And that could include addictions, psychiatric conditions, etc. But I wanted you to maybe run us through what that list looks like because I might want to double click on a few of them. So if you go to my website, and I'm supposed to put in a plug for social media, you can follow me.

41:06May I say how? Of course. Let me get it right. You can follow me at all socials at capital R Real, capital T Terry, capital R Real. So at Real Terry Real, or you can go to my website, TerryReal.com. Anyway, so I have an article about this. Should I stay or should I go? And the tool I use is what I call a relational reckoning. And it's a question you ask yourself. Here's the question. Am I getting enough in this relationship to make grieving what I'm not getting worth my while? Let me say that again. Am I getting enough in this relationship to make the pain of what's missing okay with me? And if the answer is yes, it is okay, then stop whining and embrace what's good.

42:05You know, work the change to get more, but embrace what's good and stop walking around like a big angry victim. If the answer is no, it's not enough, then do something about it. Lean in and fight. And if it doesn't work, drag your partner to hopefully an RLT therapist. They're the ones I believe in. And get an ally and get some help. And if that doesn't work, you're done. So, okay. So in answering the question, what's a deal breaker? Let me be clear. Deal breakers come only after you've dragged your partner to a couple's therapist and one that actually helps. And you know, you've heard me say, I don't think most do, but get one that will side with you and be an ally and take that person on.

42:48Okay, deal breakers. Basically, do they want to work or not? If you want to work and they don't, you could be done. And that could be an addiction, could be sexual acting out, could be anger, could be lying, could be withholding and passive aggression. But if you're not getting what you want, and the truth of the matter is your partner isn't going to do the work of giving you more of what you want, you're done. And there are a lot of variations on that. Obviously, if somebody's got an active addiction and they don't want to work on it, I would not. And people do. People go to Al-Anon and manage, but I'd prefer you break up.

43:33If somebody's a rager or mistreating you, if they violate contracts, particularly monogamy, if they're chronic liars, and if they have an untreated psychiatric condition, anxiety, depression. And then this is interesting, and I would really not trust yourself, I would only trust a professional. If there's a massive difference in the maturity level of the two people, the evolution of the two people, the immaturity of the unevolved one will start to feel too painful to the more mature one, and they should leave and find a different partner. So when you, I guess a few questions related to everything you just said.

44:23The first is, I have to imagine that in many instances, it's one partner who not necessarily drags the other person, but convinces them to do therapy. They're not equally enthusiastic about perhaps being in front of the therapist. So I would imagine there's a grace period of sorts to enlist the other person? One session. One session. How do you do that if one person is more resistant or stoic and the other person is the one who's more enthused who sort of initiated that first session? It's sort of carrot and stick. I talk about leverage, negative and positive leverage. Tim, your partner is saying do this, this, and this.

45:10She's pretty fed up. Are you fed up, partner of Tim? Yeah, I'm fed up. How fed up are you exactly? Do you believe her? Why should he believe you? And what I'm doing is I'm amplifying the negative consequences. They're there, but you're not looking at them. So my first move is to empower your partner to be firm and speak up to you. And I use that as leverage to get your interest. So this is the negative thing that I can help you avoid. and here's the positive thing I can deliver. Would you like a happier, warmer, sexier partner? Okay. And if you have kids, this is a big one. Hey, Tim, what kind of father did you have?

45:53What kind of father do you want to be? I got bad and good news. If you don't do this work, you're going to do some version of what got done to you to them. You want to do that? would you like to be a better father than the one you grew up with? Okay, well, you got to let me help you. And a lot of particularly men who won't do, it's hard work, this work. They won't do it for themselves. They won't do it for their witty wives. They will do it to spare their children. So I get buy-in. And it's a combination of this is what's going to happen to you if you don't change. And this is what could happen for you if you do.

46:38Here's the consequence. Here's the reward. And when you're talking about deal breakers, could you just clarify in what sense they are deal breakers? Does it mean that you will not work with them as clients until they address one of those deal breakers? For instance, they have addiction to alcohol or gambling or whatever it might be. I found it interesting that you mentioned the anxiety and depression because because one of the topics I wanted to talk to you about is male depression. And I guess I'm curious if you work with some of those in tandem, or if people are kind of left to their own devices to figure it out.

47:14No, never. Never do that. I never confront somebody and then let them swing in the wind. I'm always right next to you, telling you, okay, this is what you're doing that ain't working. Let me take your hand and teach you what does work. And that's different than a lot of other therapies. We roll up our sleeves and get granular. Tim, this isn't you. I'm just, Tim, do you notice that your face is kind of frozen when you talk and you're speaking a monotone? And your wife is out of her mind right now because nobody's ever said this to you, but she's bored as hell next to you. This is what I want you to do as we learn for you to start speaking about your feelings.

47:54I want you to go like this with your face. Animate it. Yeah. Let me see a little oomph here. I mean, that's what I call micro-coaching. And we roll up our sleeves and get right next to you and teach you how to do it better. We call them preconditions. Addiction, acting out, psychiatric conditions. Acting out either violence or sexual acting out. We will not take couples if there's domestic violence. You go off to a safety program, you go off to a perpetrator program. I don't ask people to tell the truth to power if it's dangerous. You know, safety for... About the others, sexual acting out, addictions, psychiatric disorders, RLT therapists will meet with the couple, but only to talk about the issues.

48:46What are you going to do about your depression? What are you going to do about your womanizing? How are we going to settle this? The idea is it would be bullshit for me to pretend that I can help you and your partner get closer while you're still engaged in this stuff. So sobriety first. I will meet with a couple, but to deal with what you're not dealing with. Then we can work on your relationship. So let's double-click on your first book. I don't want to talk about it because I know Peter Atiyah, who's an old friend of mine, of course, very well-known doc these days, is a huge fan of this book.

49:28I have not yet read it. I apologize for that. But I would love for you to perhaps describe what people get wrong about male depression, or we could dive directly into covert depression, because I'm wondering how many of these preconditions might be explained by depression as opposed to being separate problems. First of all, for those who haven't, please read Peter's book, Outlive. It's great. And the last chapter was about his work with me and Esther Perel, about his own psychological work. And also, if I may, Peter had a podcast that we did together, and he talked about his work with me. It was very moving.

50:07So look those two things up. Male depression. When I wrote that book, it's 30 years old. It's selling as well as my new books, by the way. It's really been a keeper. Depression was seen as a woman's disease. And I argued against that. And what I said is that a lot of men have the same kind of depression that we normally think of. I call it overt depression. depression, but a lot of men, unlike women, have what I call covert depression. You don't see the depression. You see what the man is doing to defend against the depression. And many of the problems we think of as typically male may be fueled by depression.

50:52So self-medication, rage, philandering, radical withdrawal, all of these may be a symptom of an underlying depression. A lucky guy gets what we call a dual diagnosis. You're, you know, forgive me, I can't be, you know the joke. You're terminal. I want a second opinion. Okay, you're ugly. It's like, okay, the bad news is you're addicted. And the worst news is underneath the addiction, you've got a depression. Lucky guy gets a dual diagnosis. Unlucky guy gets one or the other. If you stumble into an addictions person, they'll clean up your addiction, but they won't deal with them. If you go to a psychiatrist, they'll give you a mess for your depression, but you're drinking like a fish.

51:37First, you have to deal with the defenses. When they settle down and move into some level of sobriety, then the underlying depression comes to it. You don't even have to go after it. It comes up. I say the cure for a covert depression is an overt depression. Once the pain comes up, you deal with it. But I think part of the reason why that book has lasted for 30 years is there's a third piece, which is not only do men express depression differently, but the ideology is different. Girls and women get depressed because they famously lose their voices and blame themselves and turn inward. Boys and men get depressed because of what I call normal boyhood trauma.

52:26under patriarchy. We are taught at three, four, five years old to deny our vulnerability, to disconnect from our feelings, to disconnect from others, all in the name of autonomy. We cut off half of our humanity, the feelings, the vulnerability, connection, really in some ways It's the most rich, nourishing parts of what it means to be a human. And that cutoff, which is imposed on boys, I have story after story, that cutoff is traumatic. And it also renders you isolated and lonely. So there's a lot of trauma. That trauma becomes depression. That depression becomes acting out of self-medication.

53:18And if you really want to heal someone, you hit all three layers. First the defenses, then the depression, then the childhood trauma. How do you think about teasing out when, for instance, addiction is paired with underlying depression, maybe downstream of it, versus independent? it? Because I suppose there's a risk of asking a barber if you need a haircut in the sense you go to the surgeon, they tell you you need surgery. You go to the fill in the blank, right? They tell you that you need whatever their specialty happens to be, just like you mentioned with getting the single diagnosis versus the dual diagnosis.

54:01So how do you determine if something is actually paired with underlying depression, since that's the sort of example we're talking about in men, versus independent? It's really simple. When the person starts to get sober, do they get depressed? And the depression that they get looks just like psychiatric depression. I see what you're saying. So if they're a workaholic and they pare that down, does the depression then have room to breathe and express itself, basically, when the coping mechanism is removed in some capacity? Yeah, as opposed to you remove the coping mechanism and, oh my God, I'm so much better.

54:38However, you can cut out the middle piece, depression, but 99 out of 100, you go from sobriety to trauma. You have to deal with the underlying trauma. My great mentor, Pia Melody, a great legend in the 12-step community, ran the meadows for 70 years. First the addiction, then the personality issues, and then underlying childhood trauma. If you don't deal with the underlying trauma, it's going to be hard for that person to stay sober. What type of approaches or modalities do you favor for working with trauma when you get to that layer? We like to do trauma work with your partner sitting next to you, and we're unique in that.

55:28And I've got to tell you, I've argued against what I call toxic individualism in this culture, and psychotherapy is up to its eyeballs in supporting individualism and supporting patriarchy. I want to ask you about this word patriarchy because you have so many messages that I think I want to convey to not just a male audience, but I have a very large male audience. And I feel like patriarchy can be a very loaded term and that there are matriarchal or matrilineal, There are patrilineal societies, both of which function pretty well. And I'm just wondering how you think about using versus not using that term, because I feel like there's a risk that you might turn off men who actually need to hear a lot of what you have to say.

56:17How do you think about that? It is what it is. So let me talk about what I mean, and then we can talk about the marketing of it. I make a decision between what I call political patriarchy and psychological patriarchy. And political patriarchy is the oppression of women by men. It's all over the globe and, you know, it's deadly in some cultures. It's a very real thing. Psychological patriarchy is basically traditional masculinity writ large. Oh, double back. But psychological patriarchy, traditional masculinity, guys, listen up, is a system that does damage to everybody. everybody and does deep, deep damage to our relationships.

57:09What do I mean by that? Let me just you are, the more girly you are, and that is not a good thing. And of course, we both know there's been a huge resurgence, you know, a backlash. Don't tell us we're bad people. I'm not talking about not being powerful. I'm talking about not being dominant. There's a difference. Rianne Eisler talks about power over versus power with. I want men to be powerful. I also I want women to be powerful. I want all of us to be whole. And what patriarchy does is what Carol Gilligan calls the binary. These human qualities are feminine. A good man has none of them. These human qualities are masculine.

58:09A good woman has none of them. And it's what Olga Silverstein called the halving process. You take a whole human being, you draw a line down the middle, half of humanity say goodbye to. that is not healthy. That's not good for anybody. So vulnerability, for example, what we do, the way we quote-unquote turn boys into men under patriarchy is through disconnection. We teach them to disconnect from their feelings. There's hard research, three, four, five. Little boys have more feelings than little girls, actually. They're more sensitive. But by three, four, five, they know better than to open their mouths and say anything.

58:48They've read the code. So no vulnerability, no emotion, not too connected to others, you're independent. Great. Here's what I say. I would say it to you if you showed up in my office. Tim, the things you learned as a boy about what makes a good man are the very qualities that will ensure that by today's standards, you'll be seen as a lousy husband. Across the board, I'll just deal with heterosexuals for a moment. Women want men's hearts. They want connection. Tell me what the fuck you're feeling. Open your mouth and share with me. When I come to you with a feeling, be compassionate and not dismissive.

59:32Well, guess what? All of that goes against what was imposed on you as a boy about how to handle yourself as a man. But one of the things I say is moving men, women, non-binary folk into true intimacy is synonymous with moving them beyond traditional gender roles, beyond patriarchy. Men have to move into vulnerability and open their hearts. Women have to move into assertion with love, not with harshness, but with love. and doing that on both sides moves beyond anything that this culture teaches us it's pioneer work all right thank you for unpacking that we might come back to it i'm happy to talk about that more i have follow-up questions but i don't want to take us off track with the trauma question because you were talking about one of the this was defining and unusual characteristics by conventional therapy standards is that RLT does trauma work with the partner present.

1:00:33That's where I then took us on a side quest with the question about patriarchy. You know, as a relational therapist who argues against exaggerated individualism, look, here's the thing. We've never wanted more from our relationships than we do right now. It's historically new. We don't think historically, so we don't get this. But Our parents, grandparents, a companionable marriage was plenty good enough. But we want more. We want real intimacy and sustaining. We want to hold hands, walk on the beach, have heart-to-hearts, have great sex in our 60s and 70s. We want to be lifelong lovers. This is new.

1:01:11Marriage was never built for that. Go into Western literature and find me a passionate marriage. All passion is adulterous. It's new. Yeah, it's new. But we live in an anti-relational culture. That's patriarchy. We live in a culture that's about up, down, win, lose, right, wrong, no. We have to wake up to ecological wisdom. We're a team. We're in this together. What do you need, honey? It's in my interest to keep you happy. That's the new world order. And, you know, not to disunmend, but I do get these big burly guys, and they say, why should I have to work so hard to please my wife? And I go, knock, knock, you live with her.

1:01:57It's in your interest. That's what I teach people. It's in your interest to learn how to do this stuff. And also I would just say for clarification that you mean to keep someone happy, but in a interdependent, not codependent way, right? Because it's easy to go into that fixing mode and people think they're making someone happy. You're right. And I didn't say it's in your interest to make them happy. What I really say is it's in your interest to take care of your biosphere. If you ride in the one up, at some point we should talk about this. If you're more in the one up and you're more entitled, demanding, dominant, you don't listen, you got to come down off your high horse.

1:02:41If you ride in the one down like a fixer, oh my God, oh my God, my partner's upset, I'm a codependent, you need to take a breath. What your biosphere needs is for you to be assertive and be more conflictual and fight a little more, stand up for yourself. So you have to correct what's off. It's not one size fits all, it's what's off for you. If you're one up, come down. If you're one down like a fixer, than assert yourself and take some risks. But both are vulnerability. When we think of vulnerability, we think of sensitivity. But for a fixer like you, standing up for yourself and, oh my God, they may get mad at me, that's vulnerability for you.

1:03:24So what does my biosphere need? You know, Carol Gilligan says, there can be no voice without relationship. So come down off your a high horse if you're dominant. There can be no relationship without voice. So I would work with someone like you and I would have you, okay, I want you to identify what you're feeling. I want you to identify what you want and need right now. Don't worry about pleasing them. What does Tim want? And I want to teach you how to articulate that in a way that might get listened to. May I hypothesize about you? Sure. Go for it. This could be wrong, but here we go. What I make up, as we say.

1:04:07So you have this dominant, I'm assuming, father. Yeah, his father. And this codependent, unhappy mother. This is what I call the unholy triad of patriarchy. You wonder why so many men are love avoidant or avoiders. Well, here's why. You have an irresponsible or shut down father. You have an unhappy mother. You have, and I guarantee this was you, A sweet, sensitive, big-hearted young boy. The mother doesn't have to do a thing to enmesh him, to use him. That boy looks at his unhappy mother and says, what can I do to make her happy? And he lets go of what he wants and needs and becomes her caretaker emotionally.

1:04:51Grows up, and his template for relationship is, I'm a caretaker, I'm a fixer, I got to take care of them. My needs, nobody gives a shit. So what that breeds, maybe you, maybe not, is what we call love avoidant. You live behind walls. Because relationships mean I surrender my needs and caretake them. I'm a human, so I need relationships. I pull them in. But once they're in, I got to keep them at arm's length or they'll eat me alive. So you live behind walls to protect yourself. That's that adaptive child. How am I doing? I mean, you're 100 % spot on. I think at the very end, I had a question in my mind as to whether I have those types of walls, because I don't know what they might look like.

1:05:39So perhaps, could you give me an example of what those might look like? And then I could tell you. How good are you at identifying what you want in a relationship and assertively going after it? I'd say pretty good at identifying. Could be a lot better at proactively going after it and requesting it. Tend to be very indirect. That That would be accurate to say for sure. Yeah. And the cost of that indirectness is you don't get your needs met and then resentment grows and then whatever. So I have eight million sayings in my mind. Making progress. Making progress. I've improved a lot. I can feel that, by the way.

1:06:14I can feel that. I would teach you the cure for love avoidance is negotiation. I would teach you to identify what you want and lean in and have the daring break the rules and say, hey, you know what? I don't want to eat Indian tonight. I want to eat Japanese. And the last two nights we ate what you wanted and tonight we're doing Japanese. Well, I don't like that, Tim. Well, okay. And, you know, for you fixers, I say, let the bad thing happen. You know, that adaptive child part of you is petrified of conflict. You don't want to make dad angry, and you don't want to make mom unhappy. You're a fixer.

1:06:59You're a good boy, and you want to bring peace. Well, this is where trauma enters into our relationship. That adaptive child part of you has no model for healthy conflict. It's either yelling and screaming or giving in. And, you know, we children, we look at mom and dad, we go, I'll be that one. You looked at mom, I'll be that one. I don't want to be dad. I don't want to be that aggressive. So you don't have a healthy template for healthy aggression. Didn't have that model. Yeah. Yeah, me too. I had a violent father. I would teach you how to have healthy conflict and feel good about that. But it would be very scary initially.

1:07:41Mm-hmm. So you nailed a couple of things that I want to revisit. So the first, and this will come back into the patriarchy thing too, because what you do, Terry, is so powerful and so important. I want as many men to listen to it as possible, which is why I'm talking about the patriarchy piece. It's not because I disagree with a lot of what you're saying, although I do have some clarifying questions. So one thing you said is you hypothesized, right? The story you make up is that I was very, very sensitive, or I was a very sensitive young kid, which is true. I was very sensitive, much more so than my schoolmates.

1:08:17And then for a host of reasons, really also including some pretty terrible childhood abuse, not from my family, ended up turning it. Yeah, I've written about it extensively, but yeah, maybe another time. But the upshot of it is that I turned that off, right emotions insensitivity or liability so i completely compartmentalize that locked it put it away and that continued to be the case and i paid a lot for that there was some upside there's some upside i had a very high pain tolerance i could handle certain things i could be very aggressive and take a lot of shots in the course of doing various things competitive sports business whatever so i had some quote-unquote success from that but there was a lot of collateral damage and then And around 2013, for a number of reasons, including a relationship I thought was going to end in marriage and kids coming to a halt, decided to reopen the doors and sort of reactivate that sensitivity.

1:09:22So that's been a project for the last 12 years or so. Brilliant and courageous, both. Congratulations. Thank you. And so that's been an incredibly rewarding and challenging path thus far, and it continues. I don't regret having done that. My question, I suppose, and this might seem a little out of left field, is that when you're talking about men being available to their partners and emotionally attuned, and I know I'm using different vocabulary, I agree with all of that. But I suppose some people listening might feel like men and women might be positioned as equivalents in a lot of ways, sort of emotional doppelgangers.

1:10:06And I'm just wondering if you feel like there are any patterns in terms of male and female differences that you spot again and again that don't need to be fixed, that they're actually just, whether intrinsic or otherwise, sort of differences to embrace. And I'm just curious what your thoughts are there. I tend to think there are, but I'm curious what your position is on that. I don't know. Who are we beyond our socialization? I don't know. What I do know is that the bifurcation of men and women under patriarchal culture, which is virtually ubiquitous in the world, is so strong. You gave up your sensitivity because your sensitivity was punished.

1:10:53And the playground is the greatest enforcer of traditional roles. You learn. Three, four, five-year-old boys learn to keep their mouths shut or they're going to get punished. And for the guys out there, I got to say, for a girl to cross into boy land is like, no, she'll get some shit. For a boy to cross into girl land evokes violence, emotional and, I'm sorry, at times even physical violence. It's dangerous to break the rules. It's dangerous to stand up for being whole in this culture. And I talk to parents about having their boys be literate, gender literate. Can I tell you a story? Of course.

1:11:37I love your stories. So when my kids were little, I've got two kids. One's a massive jock, Justin, and one is a gay doctor, ballet dancer, and danced professionally and he's got five. Anyway, they were both amazing and very, very different kids. And we went off to vacation, like the Dominican Republic, and they had cornrows put in their hair. The kids did that. My little one, Alexander, who turned out to grow up to be gay, did his whole head in cornrows, and they were like green. No, pink and gold, his favorite color. His older brother, Justin, the jock, had a couple of like Keith Richards cool rock and roll, you know.

1:12:21All right, it's time to go to school. We're back from vacation. Belinda and I sit him down and go, here's the deal. If you go to school with that in your hair, you may get crap from the other kids. If you don't go to school with that in your hair, you may feel like you've missed out on expressing yourself. And it could be the kids are going to love that stuff in your hair. I don't know. What do you guys want to do? It's not my decision, it's yours. And we talked to boys about, do you want to express yourself and deal with the crap you're going to get? Or do you want to comply and deal with the inauthenticity of that?

1:12:57It's your choice, not ours. I don't make those choices for my boys, but it's an on-the-table conversation. So they both said, sure. And as the older one, Dustin, the Keith, puts his foot in the car, he goes, I can't do it. And we wind up cutting his hair, a little terrible. His brother, Mr. Pink and Gold, was like the toast of the town. But it could have gone another way. So I would teach young Tim how to negotiate his sensitivities so that when they were welcome, they were overt. And when they were unwelcome, you put up a shield of toughness to protect yourself and having some sense of which moment is which.

1:13:43How did you navigate that with your boys? How did you raise your boys? I'd be so curious to hear more about it because there is a time to, it's not limited to men, of course, or boys, but I think there's a lot of value placed. And I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing on competition and winning and so on and so forth. And I'm just so curious, since you mentioned the jock in particular, how did you think about raising those two boys and did you raise them any differently? I did. No, they were both phrased similarly to one another, but they're very different from the culture at large. It's funny, we just had our first relational life therapy annual conference, and my son got on stage with me.

1:14:26And the older one, Justin, the doc, was very funny. He looked at the crowd and he said, you know, being the son of two therapists, the way I grew up, you want to talk to me about how your nanny had sex with you when you were five or your deepest anxiety, I'm there, no problem. It took me into my 20s to learn how to sit on a bar stool, have a beer and talk to guys about a game.

1:14:54Nobody's perfect. You know, the thing is, I want whole people. And going back to people may be turned off by what I'm saying, it absolutely kills me when people describe my work as Terry's trying to feminize men. Just no. I want whole human beings. I want smart, sexy, competent women. I want powerful, big-hearted, compassionate men. We don't need to have ourselves in compliance to the world order. We can be whole. And the issue is whole and adaptable. What is this moment calling for? And I got to tell this story. This is one of my favorite stories. Please. So I had the privilege of going to Maasai land in Tanzania with another family who knew this particular compound, these guys, very well.

1:15:52It took 10 hours of driving to get to them. They were remote. And this is the real deal. I mean, you know, we're talking earlobes down here, and they have spears, and they kill lions, and these are real warriors. So I had a men's group with the elders for four nights running, and we talked about everything. So I go like this to them. In the United States, there's a debate about what makes a good man, a good man, a warrior, all one word. What makes a good marani? Some people say a good marani is sensitive and thoughtful and kind. Some people say a good Marani is fierce and tough and no bullshit.

1:16:34What do you guys think? Which is it? True story, Tim. So this little guy has got to be four foot three and a thousand years old, crooks his finger, and he sounds like he's totally pissed at me. And it goes from Maasai to Swahili to English to Swahili. And this is what he says. I have no interest in talking to you about what makes a good Marani. I could care a lot. But I will talk to you about what makes a great Marani. He said, when the moment calls for fierceness, a good Marani will kill you. Don't mess with him. I mean, he'll kill you. When the moment calls for tenderness, a good Marani will lay down his sword and shield and be sweet like a baby.

1:17:16A great Marani is a man who knows which moment is which. That's good. Yeah, that's very good. I want whole people who can adapt to what's in front of them. That's health. How did you and your wife think about changing how you would raise your kids from how you were raised? How did you think about that? And I'd just be curious to hear you approach that from whatever angle makes sense. Well, as you probably know, both my wife and I came from terrible trauma, terribly violent families. I wouldn't wish it on anybody. Four books, 40 years. Here's probably my single most famous quote. You know, they say it's, I had a pretension to quote yourself, but I'll do it.

1:18:07Family pathology. Rolls from generation to generation like a fire in the woods, taking down everything in its path. Until one person in one generation has the courage to turn and face the flames. That person brings peace to their ancestors and spares the children that follow. Belinda and I made a rock-solid commitment that we were not going to leak the kind of reactivity and violence that we grew up with on our kids, and we didn't. We did it on each other. we had a real rock 'em sock 'em marriage for years. We were both fighters. But we spared the children. And they know that. And they're really robust, radiantly healthy boys.

1:19:01I am the son of an angry, depressed father. He was the son of an angry, depressed father. I have two boys. Neither of them say that, and neither were their children. And that is the greatest achievement of my life. I mean, it's an amazing achievement. And I'd love to get a little more, not microscopic, but granular in the sense that a lot of people say they want to change. A lot of people have New Year's resolutions and they say, you know what, I'm not going to be the diabetic my parent was because I can fix it, I can change it, and they don't change. So I'm wondering how, especially since you had the rock 'em sock 'em experience in your marriage, what were the actions you took or the strategies you had to check yourselves and ensure that you weren't letting those older inherited behaviors bleed into your parenting?

1:19:59Well, first of all, get help. Men don't get help. In the book one, I said a man is about as likely to get help for depression as he is to ask for directions. You know, if you come from a tough background, I say this to the people I work with all the time, you can't come from what you came from and have the happy, healthy family you want without doing a shitload of therapy, a shitload of work. Men's groups, women's groups, 12-step groups, therapy, but therapy that works. But the first thing I want to say is, thank God you don't have to do this on your own because you won't know what to do. Get help.

1:20:40And get help that helps. So you guys had help. Years and years of spiritual work. I've been meditating over 50 years and all stripe of therapy work. There's a saying, therapists are people who need to be in therapy 40 hours a week. I became a professional therapist to heal myself. And then I became a family therapist to learn how to have a relationship. I mean, I was so far behind the starting gate. In 12-step, one of these folks say is the last phase is gratitude. I was so on the ropes. Unlike a lot of people, if I did my defaults, I'd be dead now. That's true. A lot of my friends I grew up with are dead.

1:21:22If I did what I learned, I'd be dead. I had no choice but to go under or reconfigure myself. And that's a gift. The same with Belinda. And we are, we're reconstructed human beings. Belinda calls us retreads, you know, like a tire. And I love reconstructed human beings. We have a lot of depth. And if I can do it, you can do it. There's a way to do it, no matter where you come from. But you've got to be willing to do the work. And it's hard goddamn work. What do your group therapy experiences look like? I remember, I don't think you'd mind me saying this. I'll double check with him after we finish recording.

1:22:03But Kevin went through a group, I want to say, for lack of a better way to describe it, sort of therapy experience with seven or eight people. He didn't tell me anything. Men. And he didn't tell me anything about the content, of course, but it had a really big impact on him. And I'm curious what the format was, what the rules looked like for a men's group like that. We start off with check-ins. How's everybody doing? What's on your mind? And then either we move into a theme that emerges. So my practice is 10 full pay people and four pro bono at any given time. And the 10 who pay, they tend to be high rollers.

1:22:45So here's a group of some of the bigger mover and shaker guys in the world right now. We had a hilarious time talking for two hours about how we were all petrified of our wives. So sometimes a theme will emerge, fathers, anger, self-medication, being afraid of our wife. And or as the check-in evolves, one person will like pop. And I'll go, Dave, do trauma work with you? We're not going to do it. Just go around anyway. But if you're in the group, at some point, I would say, I want to go back to that little boy who learned how to be a fixer. How old were you when you first adopted that? Four or five is whatever it was.

1:23:35Close your eyes, go into your body, find that four-year-old boy. Ask him to come out and sit in a chair facing you. What's he look like? How do you feel toward him? What do you want to say to him? What does he need to hear from you? What's it like for him? How does he respond to what you just said? And I get into a dialogue between you and this little boy. Of course, it's very emotional. and it ends always with you saying to that little part of you, I'm here now. I can take care of you. Your angry partner may not be available and that's frightening to you, but I'm available. We don't need her.

1:24:20You turn to me. And that's transformative. So I do deep trauma work in the men's group Or we do a theme, or we just all hang out and talk about what's going on in our lives. Any or all of the above. Are there any guidelines for how people can respond to what someone else says or discloses? I'm just thinking, there are sometimes rules in organizations like the Entrepreneurs' Organization and in forums and things like this, in these smaller-sized groups. If somebody was thinking about creating something like this for themselves, and I know it would be good to have a professional involved, of course, but are there any other rules or guidelines that you think are helpful in these types of groups?

1:25:00As you know, I have 8 million sayings and here's one of them. Generally speaking, unsolicited advice doesn't go very well. Yeah. So we all learn to have good boundaries in these groups, which we can double back and talk about. A core principle of RLT is what we call full respect living. I may disagree with how you think, but I hold you in respect. It's a part of the culture of the group that we speak to one another with humility. This is what I'm making up to him. And with respect. No one in these groups said, what a fucking asshole, how can you do this? We just don't talk to each other that way.

1:25:41And I never had to make that explicit. It just happens. When you were talking about identifying the age of the little boy and having him sit in the chair, for some people listening, they might hear echoes of, say, internal family systems, IFS. Does your approach, is it similar to that? Does it differ from it? How do you think about that? Let's do this briefly because this could be a whole. There are some similarities. For example, there's a three-part part of the psyche. What I call the wise adult has some correlation to what Dick calls self. What he calls protectors and managers has some correlation to what I call the adaptive child.

1:26:21and his exile is my wounded child. So there's some similarities, but there are also some very distinct differences. I don't believe that the adaptations that you learned as a kid are all defensive, are all about protecting the wound. And I believe there are bad parts. Dick is almost a religious fervor that there's no such thing as a bad part. No, there are grandiose, retaliatory parts of you that you really need to corral. And there's also entitlement and privilege, and it's not all grouped around protecting a vulnerability. We think that in psychiatry, too. We think all grandiose behavior is a defense against shame.

1:27:04No, some grandiose behavior is just entitlement and hatred. That's part of our humanity. You know, I don't think Hitler killed millions of Jews because he was protecting a vulnerable part of himself. There's more to it than that. So we take on some of the issues of grandiosity and entitlement and some of the less savory parts of our humanity in a way that I don't think IFS quite does. Broadly speaking, do you think there are any new or particular challenges with modern relationships? Oh my God. Dating or marriage, anything that is relatively kind of new on the scene in your opinion? Well, polyamory is interesting.

1:27:49Yeah, let's talk about it. Fire away. Belinda and I spent three months in Costa Rica amongst the young expats who can't find a monogamous couple anywhere. And polyamory is a real challenge. Monogamy is the challenge, too. I used to say, monogamy is unnatural and open marriage is a... Wow, hold on. so people trying to you know there are people experimenting with different models of intimacy and okay open the doors and their challenges yeah i remember uh i was chatting with someone who had experimented with every variant of polyamory and she referred to it as poly agony That was her label for it.

1:28:40But I would love to know, are there challenges for monogamy now that didn't seem to exist 20 or 30 years ago or that are just much more exaggerated now? Yeah, a number of things. First of all, we men are trying to figure out what the hell we are. And someone wants to describe my work as women have had a revolution and now men have to deal with it and no one knows what to do. women have had a revolution and they are speaking up and they are insisting on intimacy from us guys in ways that are exactly in conflict with our traditional role as men. You know, Eric Erickson said it's a sign of a healthy culture that socialization practices in childhood equip you to succeed in your adult roles.

1:29:33And it's the sign of a culture and transition when there's a disjuncture between the two. And for men, there's a disjuncture. What traditional masculinity teaches you as a boy, whether you want it or not, often through punishment, by today's standards, will give you problems in your relationship. You got to be vulnerable. You got to open your heart. Literally, you have to reconfigure masculinity in order to be a good partner these days, and people need help with that. The cultural response to feminism and women's empowerment has been a big backlash. You know, the manosphere and that sobering movie, Adolescence, there's a big resurgence of, I'm a man and I'm tired of being told I'm bad and go screw yourself.

1:30:26It ain't going to work. The toothpaste ain't going back in the tube. So what I say is I don't want women to stand down. I want men to stand up and meet these new demands. Look, I've been saying this for 40 years and research has finally caught up with me. Relationality, intimacy, open-hearted connection. The ace that we RLT therapists have in our back packet is that's what we human beings are designed for. We're designed to be intimate. Not being intimate, I know you do a lot of great work with health on your podcast. Not being intimate is as bad for your body as smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day.

1:31:05This is a hard black and white research. We are born to be intimate. Moving beyond traditional gender roles is the only way to get there. So stop whining, stand up, and learn a few relational skills. It's good for you. It's good for your body. You'll live longer. It's good for your marriage, and it's good for your children. Let me help you learn how to do this better. That's revolutionary. You've got a lot of people out there. I'm so happy to be on this podcast with you, truly. You've got a lot of people out there, I'm mad as hell and I'm not putting up with it. We men need to reclaim our power.

1:31:49No. We need to open our hearts and listen. And listen, here's a simple way. You don't like patriarchy. Here's what I said. I teach the men I work with to learn to become family men. Here's how you're a family man. You decentralize yourself. I wrote this and I don't want to talk about it. A boy's question of the world is what he got for me. A man's question of the world is what's needed here. And I teach men to show up as men and not boys. What's needed here? You know, research on happiness is, I like black and white research. If you get a gift, you're happy. You get happier for a bit. If you give a gift, you're even happier and longer than if you get it.

1:32:35What men need to understand is it's good for us to be empowered, be assertive, and also to be connected and show up and ask ourselves, what's needed here? How do I need to show up here? That's a man. I like that framing, the questions and how they differ for boys and men. It does, I think, perhaps to some listeners sound like men have a lot of heavy lifting to do, and women have had this revolution and all is well in woman land. Is there such a thing as toxic femininity? Is there collateral damage to all of these societal shifts? Yes. I'm glad you brought this up because in family therapy, we talk about first and second order change.

1:33:23First order change is just a rearrangement. Tommy's truant. You get Tommy and I be truant and then Sally starts It's pooping her pants. It's like, okay, well, rearranging the furniture. Second order change is a revolution. No kid has to be symptomatic. In our culture, there's a lot of what I call individual empowerment. I was weak. Now I'm strong. Go screw yourself. I am woman. I have found my voice. Hear me roar. No. And you get a lot of, I'm going to get into trouble, but too bad. You get a lot of people in that traditional feminine side of the equation. It doesn't matter what body you're in.

1:34:04You're, as a fixer, on that feminine side. You get a lot of the people on the feminine side move from disempowerment to individual empowerment. I call it, I was weak, now I'm strong, go screw yourself. And everybody will cheer. Mom, dad, therapists, 12-step sponsors, your men's group. No. Relational empowerment is the next step. I was weak. Now I'm strong. I'm going to go toe-to-toe with you. I'm going to tell you just what I want and need. Now listen to this. What can I give you to help you to do that for me? Who sounds like that? We're a team. I love you. What do you need? Let's work together.

1:34:48That's the next step. And a lot of women, early-stage feminism, moved from disempowerment to individual empowerment. You know, as a couples therapist, often the bane of my existence is an individual therapist who's individually empowered their client right out of a workable relationship. No, I was weak, now I'm strong. I love you, we're a team. Let's roll up our sleeves and work on this together. That's the new world order. So we've covered a lot of ground. I'm looking at all my notes. There's a lot that we, I'm sure, could cover, but are there any other tools that you would like to cover? Yes.

1:35:28I want to go back and talk about relational empowerment versus individual empowerment. Right. Because here's how I say it. Under patriarchy, you can either be connected, that's you, the fixer, accommodating, self-sacrificing, peacemaking, or you can be assertive. That's more traditionally, quote-unquote, masculine, independent, competent, aggressive. But you can't be both at the same time. Because power is power over. When you move into power, you break connection. That's individual empowerment. I was weak, now I'm strong. I don't care how I sound. Just listen. No, you do care how you sound, or you're not going to get listened to.

1:36:14I teach people, and particularly women in this one, or whoever's coming up from the one down, what I call loving power. And could you just, for the sake of revisiting, just describe one up, one down one more time? Because people may not have gotten that. It's what Pia called my great mentor coming out from under the great lie that a human being could be inherently superior or inferior to another human being. Healthy self-esteem, which I have to teach people in this culture, comes from the inside out. You're here, you're worthy, you're lovable, you're a good human being because you're breathing, period.

1:36:55And your essential worth can't be added to, can't be subtracted from. This is democracy. This is one person, one vote. We're all equal under the law until recently. Anyway, this is democracy, but we don't live like this. We live in the world of patriarchy, which is one up, one down, superior, inferior, better than, less than, all day long. And the one down, shame, inferiority, helplessness, defectiveness, unlovability. For 50 years, my field has focused on helping people come up from that one down. Good. But we've almost totally ignored helping people come down from the one up. Entitlement, anger, judgment, contempt, self-righteous indignation, all forms of grandiosity.

1:37:48There's a lot of ink now being spilled on the so-called narcissistic partner, which is almost always a man. And the idea is they can't be treated, leave them. Bullshit. That's more individual empowerment. We treat grandiose men breakfast, lunch, and dinner in RLT. Come down from that entitlement. Come down from that contempt. It's poison for you. Let me teach you how to do it. You'll be happier. And we do. We effectively help people come down from the one up. How do you do that? Just because people probably view this as very unfamiliar territory, as you mentioned, right? 50 years of bringing people up from one down.

1:38:28But how do you bring someone down a step back to baseline from grandiosity? You have to wake them up. There are three phases to RLT. The first we call waking up the client, which is loving confrontation, which most therapy doesn't do. Once we get what you're doing that will never work, and if you're riding the one up, your grandiosity, then we move into trauma work, what set you up to do that. And then we teach you skills. It's all three. IFS doesn't teach skills, by the way. A lot of trauma people think you remove the trauma, you don't need to teach skill and wishful thinking. Anyway, so first we confront what you're doing, then we go back to your childhood roots and where it came from and help you with that, and then we teach you new skills to replace it with.

1:39:19Why should you come down from your rage and dominance and control? Why? Well, how's it working for you? I talk about poison privilege. And let me say this, and this is particularly true for men. You know, God in her wisdom has given me access to the dream. The real American dream is that if you have money and fame, it will transmute you. You'll become a demigod and you'll be happy. I treat those people. They're not happy. They've done well in the world, but they're not happy between their ears, and they're miserable to live with. Some so-called expert got on television and talked about aspirational masculinity and Elon Musk.

1:40:07Go to the moon. Great. Be the richest man in the world. Great. You want to be married to that guy? You want to be that guy's kid? Good luck. All of the people I treat are incredible successes in the world and a mess inside. Why? The first thing I teach is the difference between gratification and what I call relational joy. Gratification is pleasure, short-term pleasure. You make a million bucks, great. Pretty girl flirts with you, great. I like pleasure in its place. Relational joy, which many of the people I, the grandiose people in particular, have no idea what I'm talking about. Relational joy is the deeper down pleasure of just being there and being connected.

1:40:54And many of the grandiose people I work with simply don't know what relational joy is. They've lived their whole life for gratification. And it's empty. And they feel the emptiness. And the people they live with are fed up with them. And they certainly feel that. So what I have to offer is relational joy. That's the ace in my pocket, because that's what we're born for. That's the only thing that will make you happy. Let me teach you to come down off your perch and enter into being a human being like the rest of us. And let me teach you to really look at what you've been doing. Can I tell you a story?

1:41:33Yes, always. A guy came in and he was quote unquote depressed. Another one of these guys with five therapists under his belt. Nobody's been able to help him. And he's on the break of divorce. And I listened to him and I go, I can't help you with your depression, but I can save your marriage. Okay. This is a guy, he literally go to work, come home, flop on the couch. His wife would be running around. They'd all have dinner. She'd do the homework with the kids. She'd put them to bed, and then he'd slump off the bed and go to sleep, get up the next day and go to work. She'd be ready to divorce him.

1:42:11I say you have a very mysterious depression it goes into remission at 8.45 and it comes roaring back at 5.15 when you're at work you manage to function when you're at home you're on the couch a million people have tried to help you with your depression I'm not going to try you're depressed, sorry, been there here's what I want to tell you here's what I want to tell you says what? Get off the couch. Go do homework with your kids. Go help your wife with your dishes. You manage to pull yourself out of yourself from nine to five. You give yourself a pass when you get home. You're going to wind up divorced.

1:42:55And you're going to do great damage to your children. And he looks at his wife and he says, I realize I've really abandoned you in this family. and I made excuses for myself all these years and he starts to cry. That's remorse. That's open-heartedness. I say he's come out of the coldness of outer space into the warmth of connection through remorse. Oh my God, I see what I've been doing to you. I'm so sorry. And I looked at him and I said, as I say to so many people in that moment, I say to him, welcome to the planet Earth. Welcome to the human race. It's been really lonely up there, hasn't it?

1:43:43Well, Terry, you have a lot of resources and a lot of books. Who should start where? In other words, do you suggest people start with any particular book or resource? If they have a particular challenge or issue, where would you point them? How can we provide a roadmap for people who want to explore more of Terry Real? Do the social media thing at Real Terry Real. That covers all the social media at Real Terry Real. Go to my website, terryreal.com. I'm pleased to say we have a lot of offerings now online for the general public. A course on self-esteem, a course on healthy boundaries, courses on relationship skills.

1:44:27We have little mini courses, how to come back from infidelity. We have particular topic courses now that are followed up by online groups that you can join. So if you're coming back from infidelity, here's a three-hour workshop, and here's an ongoing group you can be part of. We're doing more and more of that. In terms of books, I like Us, the new book. I like I Don't Want to Talk About It, the old book. And I like Fierce Intimacy. I like all three of those. Yeah, Fierce Intimacy, it is quite funny because I loved Fierce Intimacy and I wanted to find a Kindle edition to highlight. And could you explain why there isn't one, at least as it stands right now?

1:45:09It's audio. Sounds true. It asked me to, you know, it's one of those things God was with me. I sat in a booth, no notes, and I just talked for three days. And that's Fierce Intimacy. It's insane for people who want to listen to it. You know, there's certain people, maybe at that point, the spirit was at your back. And similarly, I remember at one point I was using a meditation app designed by Sam Harris, and he had this interlude, which was this commentary, and it was five or 10 minutes long. And I said, could you please send me the text? Could you send me the Google Doc? And he said, what text?

1:45:43I said, what do you mean, what text? He goes, I just got in the booth and riffed for 10 minutes. And I was like, okay. There are levels, and then there are levels. So nicely done on fierce intimacy. Thank you. Yeah. Just a few more questions and everybody should go to Terry real.com. Sure. That the socials are also available from Terry real.com and we'll link to everything we've discussed in the show notes outside of your own books. Are there any books that you have gifted frequently to other people or reread more than once yourself that come to mind? I'm a big fan of Jim Gilligan's book violence.

1:46:18It's not an easy read. What was the name of the book again? Violence. Oh, violence. Yeah. Jim was the medical director of the Bridgewater Hospital for the Criminally Insane. And he worked with serial killers. He worked with Hannibal the Cannibal. And he starts off as a young man taking this over. And he says to himself, if I can figure out the dynamics of these guys, I can figure out what violence is. And he does in the book. so that's been a great inspiration to me why has that been an inspiration to you? I deal with male violence I deal with violence and both Jim and I agree that violence is the shunting from the one down to the one up from shame to grandiosity from helplessness to attack and so it's really it took him 25 years to write that book and it shows you know Now, not to drift, but when 9-11 happened, I wrote an op-ed piece that nobody published.

1:47:24In the piece I said, this is the first time we've been hit on American soil. This is a national trauma, unlike anything we've faced before. And as a trauma expert, I know that you have two choices. You can tolerate the discomfort of sitting with the vulnerability and pain of that trauma and maybe asking some tough questions about why and what needs to happen. Or you can escape that discomfort by a flight into one-up, grandiosity, judgment, contempt, and attack. And my hope for this country is we join together in the vulnerability rather than escape into attack. Nobody published that. Two weeks later, we were in Iraq.

1:48:11So I like the book. So I want people to resist the temptation of flying from discomfort into one-up superiority, contempt, judgment, and attack on all sides, the left and the right. The left is not shy about moving into self-righteous indignation and contempt either. We talk about full respect living. I'll put my body on the line and be on the streets protesting your agenda and still hold you in regard as a human being. I don't have to dehumanize you in order to fight you. Gandhi knew that. Martin Luther King knows that. That wisdom is being lost all over the globe right now. It needs to be rekindled.

1:49:01Any other books that come to mind besides violence? I like Raymond Chandler. Yeah, Ray Bichanler's amazing. Where would you have to go start, or do you have a favorite? You know, I love lines. Belinda made my day by giving me a book called The Great One-Liners from Noir. I like noir. The Big Sleep, I guess. There's a great line, when Humphrey Brogard meets Laura McCall, playing Sam Spade, she says, Oh, I see you met my little sister. He says, Yeah. She tried to sit on my lap. I was sitting up at the time.

1:49:42Now that's writing. All right. So speaking of one-liners, just a few more questions and then we'll wind to a close. If you had a billboard, metaphorically speaking, just to get a message, a line, a quote, a question, anything like that to many, many millions of people, what might you put on that billboard? Have the courage. to move beyond the defaults you were handed and do it with help. Terry, thank you for taking the time today. It's so nice to see you again. I really appreciate you carving out the time being flexible on Start Time and covering so much ground as well. You're a wonderful interviewer, Tim.

1:50:22And I'm sure you're going to edit this out, but if I dare say it, even the little I know you, I've grown fond of you. I'm rooting for you. So what a service you're offering. And thank you for having me on. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Terry. And to everybody listening, we will have links to everything in the show notes as per usual at tim.blog slash podcast. Just search Terry or Terry Real and it'll pop right up. And until next time, as always, be a bit kinder than is necessary to others, but also to yourself. Don't forget the last piece. And thanks for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off.

1:51:01And that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums, perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests.

1:51:41And these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, tim.blog slash Friday. Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. My first book, The 4-Hour Workweek, which made everything else possible, is built around the acronym and framework DEAL, D-E-A-L, Define, Eliminate, Automate, and Liberate.

1:52:17Now, of course, after you define all the things you want, your metrics, 80-20, blah, blah, blah, then you want to get rid of as much as possible, eliminate. But sometimes there are things that are a huge hassle, like expense management for a lot of companies, which you can't get rid of. They are essential to your business. But today, thank God, you can automate it. And there is no better way to do that than with today's sponsor, Ramp. Ramp is a free corporate card that automates away your entire expense process. They are incredibly fast growing and incredibly well-reviewed for good reasons. The moment your team makes a purchase, Ramp handles everything.

1:52:55Receipt matching, categorization, approval, the whole works. Switching to Ramp is like hiring a full-time employee just for expense management. And Ramp makes it easy to migrate from your current corporate card with their complimentary white glove onboarding service for new members. More than 25 ,000 businesses trust Ramp, including my good friends at Shopify and the Boys and Girls Club of America, which is why they were just named number one in spend management by G2. And now for a limited time, you guys, listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show, can get$250 when you join Ramp. Just go to ramp.com slash Tim.

1:53:32That's R-A-M-P dot com slash Tim. Cards issued by Sutton Bank. Member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. Listeners have heard me talk about making before you manage for years. All that means to me is that when I wake up, I block out three to four hours to do the most important things that are generative, creative, podcasting, writing, etc. before I get to the email and the admin stuff and the reactive stuff and everyone else's agenda for my time. For me, let's just say I'm a writer and entrepreneur. I need to focus on the making to be happy. If I get sucked into all the little bits and pieces that are constantly churning, I end up feeling stressed out.

1:54:13And that is why today's sponsor is so interesting. It's been one of the greatest energetic unlocks in the last few years. So here we go. I need to find people who are great at managing. And that is where Cresset Family Office comes in. You spell it C-R-E-S-S-E-T. Cresset Family Office. I was introduced to them by one of the top CPG investors in the world. Cresset is a prestigious family office for CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs. They handle the complex financial planning, uncertain tax strategies, timely exit planning, bill pay, wires, all the dozens of other parts of wealth management and just financial management that would otherwise pull me away from doing what I love most, making things, mastering skills, spending time with the people I care about.

1:54:59And over many years, I was getting pulled away from that stuff at least a few days a week, and I've completely eliminated that. So experience the freedom of focusing on what matters to you with the support of a top wealth management team. You can schedule a call today at CrescentCapital.com slash Tim. That's spelled C-R-E-S-S-E-T. CrescentCapital.com slash Tim to see how Crescent can help streamline your financial plans and grow your wealth. That's CrescentCapital.com slash Tim. And disclosure, I am a client of Crescent. There are no material conflicts other than this paid testimonial. And of course, all investing involves risk, including loss of principle.

1:55:37So do your due diligence.

1:55:44Thank you.