Frankenstein Therapy in Men Over 40 Divorce Recovery - Lair Torrent, L.M.F.T. || Don’t Pick the Scab Podcast || David M. Webb

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Don't Pick the Scab podcast with the premise of connecting man over 40

[00:00:21] with the tools and community to thrive in their divorce recovery either before, during,

[00:00:26] or after a divorce.

[00:00:28] Check it out. hundred billion bits of information per second through the various ports in our bodies. And so automation is our friend and that takes us out of the moment. We want to stop and notice what we're thinking, what we're feeling because we're busy automating and sorting all the information that's coming in.

[00:01:40] And so mindfulness is a 2,500 year old practice.

[00:01:43] It's Eastern based practice of taking a pause.

[00:01:47] They call it the sacred pause and beginning to notice. you come across? Well, um, you know, I think it goes, and I'm not the first to say this, it goes in stages. And I know that we have the stages of healing or the stages, which, you know, we find out they are not linear. But the resistance, typically, for me, is like people don't, people have a hard time asking for help. We have this idea, and I

[00:03:04] don't know if this is a particularly American idea, man, because I think instinctively we know, we know that that's a rough road to hoe and if we do it properly, we're gonna feel some stuff. And we've pathologized our feelings in this culture. We don't wanna feel what it feels like to be human. And what we know is, what I know is,

[00:04:20] if you wanna really get through it,

[00:04:22] if you really wanna deal with your grief and your suffering,

[00:04:25] the only path through it is through it. there's this vulnerability and saying, I don't know. We should know. And I think that's it, right? Asking for how we're supposed to be strong. And I think asking for help denotes a certain level of weakness. And so typically when men come through my door, they're either being dragged by their spouses. And I know this is stereotypical in cliche, but sometimes stereotypes and cliches play.

[00:05:41] They're there because of some reasons.

[00:05:43] And, or when men, things have really fallen apart.

[00:05:46] Now, I will say this, you know, you name it, I'm doing the family systems, I'm doing all the stuff and it's working like a charm. People are eating it up and they're loving

[00:07:00] it, right? They're literally high fiving me, glad-hand hugging me as they're going out the door.

[00:08:02] answer. And she said to me, well, if you don't like it, then go figure out something for yourself. And I was like, you

[00:08:05] can do that. And she said, Yeah, I don't think she thought I

[00:08:07] would do it. So I went back to the drawing board. And I was

[00:08:11] like, Okay, what do we have, we have a lot of these modalities

[00:08:16] in psychotherapy, but are cordoned off because of money.

[00:08:20] Right? My theory, my way, the way I do, it's the way to do it,

[00:08:23] right? Not the way they're doing it. How are you not taking this

[00:08:27] from that and this from this and about to say? And do I want to do or say this thing? So that's how Eastern philosophy and mindfulness came into my practice.

[00:09:40] So you just gave me the title of the podcast,

[00:09:43] the Frankenstein therapist.

[00:09:45] I honestly thought about that's really good. What do you do?

[00:11:00] And I'm not the first to say that, to say that,

[00:11:02] that love's a verb.

[00:11:04] For me, the practice of love boils down to one, mindfulness,

[00:11:07] because we have to learn what story we're telling. Is that my sweetheart to left the milk out again for the second time this week? Who's just so tired and worked so hard? Or is it I use it with my kids. I use it in my life. Oh yeah. This is part of life. What levels of love are there? There's different types of love. How can you explain those? I always say that the Eskimos have 100 words for snow.

[00:13:40] We have one for love.

[00:13:41] And the type of love I think the love I have with my wife now of 23 years is one that goes to depth, right? The dopamine is worn off. And the thing that we can rely upon is oxytocin. That is the hug hormone. And that comes from showing up. That comes from personal

[00:15:02] responsibility. That comes from I go back to these four core questions that I ask everybody, was I loved? Were you safe? Were you enough? And did you matter? Right?

[00:16:24] And if any one of those are not answered in the affirmative, then that's your core Well, look, it depends on this. This is where we get into parts because you can have someone who's very, very self-confident in their work as an example, because again and again, they've gone to work and had their efforts there rewarded. But they have a thing, you know, they go home and they get on the apps had this, you'll love the story. I do a lot of work with actors. I was a sort of a therapist on Broadway for a long time. And so I get a lot of referrals in that area. And so I didn't know this guy's name, but the camera opened up. And I immediately recognized him from the show that I had watched in the early 2000s. I was like, Oh's like, I showed up kind of kicking the dirt, you know, slump shoulder kid from the Midwest apologizing for being in the room. I said, well, what happened? He goes, because obviously something changed. He said, well, I just decided one day I'm never going to be Meryl Streep. I'm never going to be Robert DeNiro. I had to be myself. And I just showed up and your professional actor. He goes, yeah, yeah, sure.

[00:20:21] I said, so who showed up at the meeting with the producer and the director? He goes,

[00:21:25] one piece of healing, what would it be? Out of everything you do, what would you insert in their brains?

[00:21:26] They're sort of representative of every divorce guy in the world. The thing that I would,

[00:21:33] the practice that I would give to them is the practice of the narrative. Because very

[00:21:38] often when we boil it down, they have most of, and find you a bigger cave, sweetie. That's kind of how we feel, I think, in general. And so often men walk away from something like a divorce with a problematic narrative. A story about themselves that's less than healthy, often toxic. Those thoughts become feelings, right? So let's

[00:23:04] talk about what goes in the body. When I have a thought, my body is like a short order cook, So Man your face was Daddy gives the big piece of chicken. Don't you touch it? I will give the big piece of chicken away. Uh-huh. Yeah, no problem I know probably get away but you're in control of the big piece of chicken though. Yeah. Yeah