Unleashing Your Inner Therapist – Learn to Heal Through Potent Therapy Models

Unleashing Your Inner Therapist – Learn to Heal Through Potent Therapy Models

Eric Deschamps:

Get ready for a powerful conversation about setting yourself free with one of the greatest influencers in our lives and in the life of this podcast. That’s coming up next.

Rob Dale:

Hi, and welcome to the Living Rich League podcast. It’s so great to have you here with us again today. We are Super excited because we’ve got doctor Sherry Kane here with us again this week.

Eric Deschamps:

2 weeks in a row. How do we manage to luck out

Rob Dale:

Oh, absolutely.

Eric Deschamps:

Sherry for 2 weeks in a row.

Rob Dale:

If you haven’t, listen had a chance to listen to last week’s episode, I encourage you to maybe even hit pause. Go back.

Eric Deschamps:

Listen to that one.

Rob Dale:

That one, and then come back and jump in here. Doctor Sherry Kane has been such an influence on the living richly model in our own lives Personally, she has really been, such a an an instrumental part of our journey, to healing, and, it’s just so such a privilege to have her. She’s worked with everything from prisoners to professional athletes to regular, people like you and me. Now You were on the show.

Eric Deschamps:

I’ve never been called regular before. You,

Rob Dale:

Sherry, you were on the I’ve

Eric Deschamps:

been called special

Rob Dale:

a lot. You’re very special. Sherry, you were on, last week, and we have been flooded with emails and questions about that episode. And the number 1 by far, the most common question that everyone has emailed us about since last week’s episode dropped is this, Who is more fucked up, Eric or Rob?

Sherry:

Well, let let me let me get back to you on this. I’m not sure that I really wanna open with offending either one of you.

Eric Deschamps:

That’s probably wise. You you could save that when we sign off later. You could let us know, and then we could let our listeners know. Alright.

Rob Dale:

Although we know it’s Eric.

Eric Deschamps:

We know it’s we know it’s me. We know it’s me. Made a lot of progress, though.

Rob Dale:

Did you see how he he just took that? You accepted it, embraced it. Sherry’s making a note for your next Yeah. I was mentioning that.

Sherry:

Hi, Sarah. I I’m making notes right now. It’s what we need to.

Rob Dale:

No. Sherry, it is It is great to have you with us. And today, we really wanna talk about because some of the, the I I don’t know if you call the the modalities or the the The areas that you specialize in are those areas that absolutely impact us. In fact, what I’ve done is I pulled up on my iPad screen here Is the team notes that you have had with our, team at Rhapsody, our our our business company, the, some of the notes you’ve done as you’ve worked you spend an entire year working with our entire team of coaches, and I pulled those those up, because I’ve got a bunch of things that are highlighted that I may use as kinda to help, lead into different conversations, with you. But maybe, Maybe you could start by just giving us a little bit of, what is the model that that doctor Sherry Kane typically leans into with the people that you work with.

Sherry:

Okay. I’m, I’m trained at the cognitive behavioral therapist. So, you know, when I when I I just did a training the other day, and I said, I’m teaching you the absolute best thing I’ve ever learned in my life. Like, the the thing that has absolutely Changed my life, and the thing that I’ve seen probably thousands of people use To change their lives, and and it’s the the cognitive behavioral therapy models that I use. So when people come into therapy, I am I am they’re it’s the foundation. I’m always thinking from these perspectives, And then eventually, depending on the pacing with the client, I always teach my clients these 2 models So that they they begin to become their own therapist as well. You know? You see me once a week or once every other week, But you’ve got the tools to being out there and challenging and working with yourself in the same way once you learn these models. So, 2 I’ll I’ll give you the names of the 2 of them.

Sherry:

It’s rational emotive behavior therapy and transactional analysis are the two models that are the foundation of of counseling. Now early on Early on as a therapist, those were the the 2 models that that I used. And It’s it’s been interesting in my development over over 35 years as a therapist. You know, the the people who I sit with now certainly get a different therapist than the therapist I was 35 years ago, because in addition to the cognitive therapy, there’s For for people who are considering going to therapy, they’re the we could we could write a whole list. Existential therapy, Rogerian therapy, Adlerian therapy. You know, the the list goes on. Reality therapy. And and what I believe as a therapist, The primary agent of change in therapy is first and foremost not the modality, but it’s the therapeutic relationship.

Sherry:

So, you know, people can sometimes be worried like, oh, what if I’m not getting the right kind of therapy? Or what if I I didn’t go to a cognitive therapist, or what if I didn’t go first of all, it’s the the primary agent changes. Find Somebody that’s a good fit for you that that you connect with and that you feel safe with and that you can tell your truths to. And then 2nd is I certainly am a am a, believe that cognitive behavior therapy is the biggest tool for change.

Eric Deschamps:

Yeah. And and I’d have to I mean, before meeting you, I’ve talked about it in the episodes where I tell my story and in other episodes. I began to reach out for help probably around the age of 30 because I knew something was terribly wrong. The the model I’d been taught, in terms of how you live life, the expectations, and the You gotta do this, and you live your life this way. And even my religious context that I came from, right, it just none of it was working. And I remember, I was very unhappy, and and, I remember reaching out for therapy. And I went a few times to different therapists and found some benefit to it. I also understand that back then, you know, the walls were thicker.

Eric Deschamps:

Right? I hadn’t, perhaps I I perhaps I wasn’t fully ready yet, but what I Can say is in my work with you and our work together, it’s amazing the results that come, and they come quickly. They don’t come overnight, but the the modalities that, you taught us, CBT, REBT, TA, you’ve mentioned them, and we’re we’re gonna ask you to kinda give us a, like, sort of a layman’s version short explanation of each and and why they’re so important. Those models now become foundational. And when you say they’re designed to teach the the the client how to actually use these tools for themselves, I I mean, 100%. Like, it, it really becomes a framework, at which you look through the world at and are able to navigate out of difficult things that used to, you know, leave me marooned Somewhere, our ship crashed on on a rock or something, and now you’re able to navigate much tougher stuff because you’ve got those tools under your belt. Right?

Sherry:

Yeah.

Rob Dale:

Tell tell so maybe do that exactly what Eric was suggesting. Why don’t you give us layman’s term, What are what do we mean by some of these different types of therapy?

Sherry:

And then okay. So rational emotive behavior therapy, is a cognitive therapy that out of any of them, If yeah. This is the this is the line that when you get this because when you hear it, it’s like, oh, okay. That makes sense. But when you really get it, learn it, dig down, go after it, fight for it, and live it, this changes your life. So the rational mode of behavior therapy is based on the model that our thoughts cause our feelings, which cause our behaviors. So thoughts cause feelings cause behaviors because the the beauty and and Wonderfulness of that is that when I realize every feeling I have, So, every feeling, everybody out there listening, every feeling you have, you created it. And when you realize you created that feeling, the power in that that you can then change that feeling, So I am directly responsible for how I feel and how bad I feel.

Sherry:

And And I’m not saying that, like, you know, you didn’t have something bad happened that there’s a bad feeling, but I am certainly you take That I’ll give you a quick if you have a 100 people that go through a divorce, not all 100 people feel the exact same way Getting divorced. Right? Some are some are devastated. Some are neutral because they’ve been beat up by the marriage so much that it’s just sort of okay. It’s finally over. Some are having order in divorce party stuff off of Amazon, so it’s It’s never the event. So it’s not the event that causes us to feel. It’s our our self talk. So going after self talk is the the basis of, cognitive therapy, rational mode, You represent it.

Rob Dale:

If I can jump in just because I’m gonna show you how great a, student I am.

Eric Deschamps:

Are you trying to get a gold star?

Rob Dale:

Am, like, you know, very difficult for the camera. We’ll be it’s

Eric Deschamps:

not gonna pick it up.

Rob Dale:

Pick us up other than the fact that there’s a lot of color showing on On the screen right now, but these are the words from your teaching with our team the way I wrote it down, and it’s probably very similar to what you just said on this subject. And I share this by the way, this clip, I give to clients. I’ve I’ve at least once a month, there’s a client I’m having Or a team that I’m training that I bring this up, and I pull it right out. I give you you know, I say, this is what I learned from Sherry. The words you use impact the way you think. What you think impacts how you feel, how you feel impacts how you behave, and how you behave impacts your results.

Sherry:

Absolutely.

Rob Dale:

It’s right out of that that idea. Right? That’s it’s such a powerful truth.

Eric Deschamps:

And I still remember when you made that statement. It was in, one of those team sessions. And I I have to say that not only have you, helped both Rob and I personally in terms of our own journey. Again, we last week, we we mentioned on the show when you were with us, for the 1st episode with you, that in many ways, this podcast, is an is has grown out of our personal journey of which you have been a huge part, and you helped us overcome a bunch of things, and and heal find healing, through those models, but those models also make us better coaches. Right? We, I feel I’m the, a better coach now having these tools in my toolbox, but I still remember when you said to us, every feeling you’ve ever had, you created. And I remember at first, my internally, my back went up. I I sensed resistance. I was like, I don’t know if I believe that.

Eric Deschamps:

But then as I sat with it, I’m like You said

Rob Dale:

it just like that.

Eric Deschamps:

I said it just like, I don’t know if I believe that.

Rob Dale:

That’s That’s his attempt at Southern drawl.

Eric Deschamps:

I that was my well, it’s because I I often describe Sherry. I said, one of the things about Sherry is, like, she could say anything to you even if it hurts because she says it with this, you know, this southern brawl Like a smile. And a smile. She get away with anything. That’s a really bad, attempt at, your, but it’s so true.

Sherry:

It was pretty good. It was pretty good. Been around me a while.

Eric Deschamps:

I I have I’ve been around you a while. Yeah. But this notion of we are not our feelings, we are not our thoughts, we have the power to choose our thoughts, Choose our beliefs, and as a result, choose a better response to what we’re facing. I it’s a Dalai Lama’s famous saying. You know, pain Pain is or in is it pain is inevitable, but suffer yeah. But suffering is optional. Right? So powerful.

Sherry:

Yeah. The other thing about cognitive therapy that I’d just say quickly because I want people to get it. I want them to get it that there is There is a way to change. This is a vehicle to change. Language is so powerful. Every single word You utter has a consequence. There is a there is a biological and a physiological consequence To a to a word. So that’s then your body gets flooded with things with the you know, I have a handout that I give people, and I say, if if if all if I hand you this and all you do is take this handout and You don’t even have to know why.

Sherry:

But if you did what I said, which is don’t ever say these words again, you will live longer, and you will be a bit healthier if you eliminate these 5 words from your language. So it’s a picture by hand, and it has the words can’t, should, try, never, and always. And if we eliminate those words, You know, and Albert Ellis, who’s the founder of Rational Motive Therapy, he’s the one that has said should should should. Don’t should all over yourselves, and don’t should all over other people.

Eric Deschamps:

Right?

Sherry:

Well, the shoulds or demands that we have for people. So there’s a lot there’s a lot to learn That because people can feel so hopeless and they can feel so terrible and they they’re not able to imagine being able to change. And And that is, you know, that’s what I always ask when I because I teach a lot of I teach beginning counseling classes. I teach a lot of beginning counselors. And My question is, what do you believe about how people change? What do you what do you believe about how people change? And It it you want your therapist to have an answer to that. I mean, I’ve sat in a room teaching a 100 seasoned therapist And said, what do you believe about how people change? And, you know, it’s sort of like like neurosurgery. Surgery. My son has a a brain tumor, and when we were consulting with neurosurgeon, you know, you don’t want you you don’t want your neurosurgeon going, oh, Well, I don’t I don’t really know how I’m gonna get it out or, maybe this way or Perhaps this you want them to have some confidence in what they’re what they’re doing.

Sherry:

And So this, the the having a model for how people change. And, I mean, there’s there are Studies on the power of language and words. So I I could I I have to be quiet now because I could talk about

Eric Deschamps:

Don’t do it.

Sherry:

Amped up. I get all excited because it’s so powerful.

Eric Deschamps:

But that’s and I think that’s what makes you such an amazing practitioner of your craft, is because of, well, the the the conviction you have around its ability to help people, and we’re both, a testimony to that in terms of, things that have over I often talk, and I’ve said this to you, Sherry, in some of our sessions that I still remember old Eric. I still remember that guy that couldn’t stand himself and felt that he was the worst person on the planet and a failure as a dad and a failure as a partner and failure on all these fronts. And yet here I am holding up, a hope to the rest of the world, but I didn’t believe it applied to me. I still remember him, but it feels like so long ago now. And like you said in the last episode where you reached a point where you’re Comfortable in your own skin. That’s where I’m I I I’ve been tasting that now since, probably spring of 2021. And and so although I can still remember old me, it feels like so long ago. Right? Talk to us for a minute.

Eric Deschamps:

We you know, there’s this notion of, does language Impact your thoughts. Do thoughts impact your language? Like, where do you start? Right? Because I think there’s a case that could be made on both that our The language you use influences our thinking, but, there’s an old Hebrew proverb that says out of the heart, the mouth speaks. So our language also reveals what we believe about the world? How do those 2 things come together?

Sherry:

Yeah. You know, in terms of Language sort of what comes first, the chicken or the egg. Right? Like, where where did where does it come from? I think That people when when we speak, we do speak from the heart like, the from the heart. Right? You feel like it’s your heart. We feel like, oh, I have a feeling. I have an emotion, and then I’m gonna be thinking about that emotion. But it it really is if you buy into cognitive therapy, It it is the thought first that creates that feeling. It’s the language that creates that feeling.

Sherry:

I I don’t know if I’m answering or getting it, the what you’re asking about that.

Eric Deschamps:

I think you are. I think you are. I think it’s, because I I’ve had people sometimes push back and just ask me that question to say, well, where does it start? But I think to your point, sometimes it’s hard to know where it starts, but those 2 things go together. If you want to change your your feeling state, I often use and I’m not sure if this is a good example, but I’ll say, tell me you know, if I if I was to ask you to tell me the your happiest memory, talk to me about your happiest memory, tell me the story. So I can almost guarantee what would happen. You would your face would probably loosen. You’d start to smile. You’d you because you would be remembering the feelings associated with that memory.

Eric Deschamps:

And if I said, now talk to me about one of the hardest moments you’ve ever gone through, again, your entire physiology would change. What your thoughts, the way you what you’re thinking and focusing on is literally impacting how you’re feeling in that moment, and as a result, can definitely impact the decisions and the choices that you make.

Sherry:

Right. Right. Exactly. And, yeah, I’ve had I’ve had people in, you know, doing trainings with therapists maybe somebody that really doesn’t buy into cognitive behavioral therapy. They might come back with, well, no, that you just feel something. You feel something. You know? And and or I just woke up, and I wasn’t thinking about anything. Well, it’s not that you were not thinking about anything.

Sherry:

You were just not aware of what you were thinking about Because we’re thinking all the time. Like, we’re thinking our mind, our subconscious is thinking while we’re sleeping. You know? Our our dreams are Are our body processing stuff while we’re asleep? And, you know, researchers, I don’t know exactly how they know this, but they write it Somewhere. So they must feel like they have an idea about it, but they say that we think between 60, 72,000 thought today. And they also say that of those 60 to 72000 thoughts a day, that 95% of them are unconscious. That it’s only we’re only aware of 5% of the 70,000 thoughts that run through our mind today. So what are those unconscious boogers in there doing? What are they thinking? You know, if you’re walking around feeling pretty miserable, That’s what that’s what therapy and awareness does. It’s bringing the unconscious to the conscious.

Sherry:

It’s bringing what’s in the darkness Into the light so we can look at it and and then begin to change it. So, you know, the the The power you know, I I often tell counselors, you, you know, you can, oh, you can open people up or shut them down with a single sound. So So what do you imagine words do that open somebody up or shut them down?

Eric Deschamps:

Well, you talk about those, 60 to 72000 thoughts a day and how 95% of them are in the unconscious, unconscious, mind. It’s not in our awareness. I’ve also heard, of those thoughts being negative is upwards of 85 to 90%. So of the 60 to 72,000 Thoughts we have in a day, most of them are negative, and most of them are the same thoughts as yesterday. So you talk about being stuck in your past. I often when people, you you start talking about the subject, it can make them uncomfortable. We start talking about seeing a therapist or doing the work. And I, I’ve often heard it like, I’m afraid to do that, or I don’t wanna do that.

Eric Deschamps:

I don’t wanna open up Pandora’s box. But the reality is those shadow forces, are pulling strings, in our behavior, in our thinking, in our feeling. So the cost of doing the work versus the cost of not doing the work, is is pretty significant.

Sherry:

Right. Absolutely. Yeah. I I had a client the other day that didn’t wanna do the work of past pretty intense abuse. And and As if not by not doing the work, somehow that she was gonna avoid hurting. The reality is you’re here because you’re hurting. You’re hurting so profoundly. So it it’s it’s hurting you right now.

Sherry:

And I I assure anyone out there, opening Pandora’s box and doing the work is is a good thing.

Rob Dale:

You, you know, it’s interesting. Again, right ahead of my notes, right at the front here was that Question that you, mentioned just a few minutes ago about tell me how you believe people change, and then highlighted here was that response of they people change by changing how they think. Another thing that you helped me do, and I I’m sure, Eric, you were in this as as well as so many is you also help us Helped us understand the importance of naming what’s going on. Right? Naming the feeling, naming the emotion, That we can start to work through what’s going on when we finally come to when we identify often the power Or of just simply naming something.

Eric Deschamps:

To tame it.

Rob Dale:

Right? Naming it to tame it to to the the just just naming this is the feeling I have. Okay. Now I can it’s it’s out there. It’s no longer in here. It’s out there. Talk a little bit about how you integrate that part of the the the practice of Of naming things in order to be able to work on them.

Sherry:

Well, yeah, the I mean, the 3 big questions like the when you when I’m teaching people REBT, The 3 questions are, what am I feeling first, and then the importance of that is accurately labeling the feeling. Because if somebody just says, I’m really angry, and I go to work on anger and we’re working on anger, but I never drop you I never help you drop down to what else are you feeling and what else are you feeling. And, really, you’re not really angry. You’re sad, hurt, or scared. Anger is a protective emotion. So if we go work on anger, we’re not really working on fear or hurt or sad at that moment. So the importance of accurately labeling feelings. So what am I feeling? What am I telling myself? And then is is what I’m telling myself a scientific fact?

Eric Deschamps:

Oh, I remember you first saying it.

Sherry:

Well, I wanna ask yourself that question because if it’s not a scientific fact, are you comfortable to everyday say, okay. Good night. I’ve lied to myself all day. See you tomorrow. Let’s lie again all day to ourselves tomorrow.

Eric Deschamps:

Right.

Sherry:

If you can’t prove everything you’re running through your head I had a I had a kiddo the other day when I said, asked her how she thought about herself, and she said, I’m I’m a I feel like I’m a piece of shit is what she said. And So I’m like, okay. Let’s look for the evidence. Let’s get some scientific evidence of that. And I was a 100% certain we were not gonna prove her fecal matter, So I knew I had stuff to go after.

Eric Deschamps:

Right. Right. I’ve used, again, my version of that, again, inspired by our work together, because that was such a powerful process. I remember it took time, but over time, you helping me dismantle a lot of the irrational beliefs that I had formed, about life in general and primarily, the beliefs I held about myself. Sherry, I still remember that time, and I’ve talked about it in the podcast before. It was, in 2017, I hit the wall with severe burnout, and I ended up coming, down to Pennsylvania to spend a week, working with you in some intensive sessions, And I had been pretty much shitting on myself for most of those sessions, just really beating myself up. And, and then I remember we took a break for lunch, And that day some days we went for lunch together, other days we we part ways and came back together in the afternoon. This is one of those days where we went our own way.

Eric Deschamps:

And when I come back into the room we were using, beside me now is this chair, this little plastic toy chair, that you’ve placed there, and I dared not ask skew what it was doing there. I was like, fuck. I am not asking her what that’s about because I know I’m not gonna like it. Well, sure enough, you didn’t say anything. We started talking again, And I went right back to saying all those really derogatory things and hurtful things about myself, and I remember you, And it’s one of the first like, I think it’s the 1st time I saw you get this firm with me, firm and still compassionate. You said, okay. Get up. And I said, what? Stand up, you said.

Eric Deschamps:

And and this is the way that I remember it, and he says and look at that chair. And you said, I want you to imagine, your son, like, if he was, like, 4 or 5 years old sitting in that chair, would you say to him the things that you’re saying to yourself right now? And I remember that hit me like, a ton of bricks, and that was a significant moment as part of an ongoing journey, but a significant moment in in beginning to shift that mindset for me and begin to I think these things don’t just go away overnight. I think sometimes It we we start to loosen them, and then they start to slowly lose their power over us until we reach a point where they don’t hold that much power at all. But I still remember that moment.

Sherry:

Right. Right. Yeah. And, Eric, when you said about a a minute ago, you said about irrational sentences. That’s that’s So important, and that goes back to about when I said 95% of what we think is, you know, what we think is subconscious or unconscious, We’re not aware of those irrational thoughts. I tell people, and I’m I’m very confident in telling people if I took a room of Twenty people off this I hadn’t put 20 people off the street in a room. If I spent 20 minutes with you, I bet I can find an irrational sentence that you don’t know you’re thinking. Like, I bet you think we tend to think what we’re thinking is rational Until someone helps us

Eric Deschamps:

Yeah. Take Well well, you you refer to it. I mean and and the first time I heard it put Sway, was was from when you were working with our team recently when you said that that’s a person’s private logic. They have their own private logic about How the world works or how the world should work, and when it doesn’t show up that way, this is where we get, really, unhappy. And it And Albert Ellis, you know, he says we we make ourselves miserable. We make ourselves miserable because these these False statements. I loved Ben Bergeron was on our show recently. He’s talking about how, as human beings, we are master storytellers.

Eric Deschamps:

Like, we we’re storytellers, you said. But One of the things storytellers do is create drama, and I thought that was so powerful. Yeah. We create unnecessary drama because of the stories that we’re telling ourselves. So you talked about you want people to get present to what they’re feeling, and I know that, you introduced the feeling wheel to us and and how what a powerful tool that is to try to kinda get, beyond just the surface emotion and really understand what’s going on. What are you thinking when you’re feeling this way? What are the thoughts that are going through your head? Right? How do you then once You’ve done that work. You’ve identified how you’re feeling. You’ve identified an irrational belief, especially as it has to do with your, like, one’s own self.

Eric Deschamps:

How do you begin to unmake it and and shape it differently? Where would you take a a client next?

Sherry:

And that’s the this is a r e b t is an a, b, c, d, e model. And, d is for disputing. You dispute the irrational sentences, and so that’s where you go look for the fact in them. So if I have a guy who is in despair because someone has broken up with him, and that’s the motto I teach off of. I have a client who attempted to take his own life after broke up with him. And the sentence is I was listening with an REBT ear when I went to the hospital to to see him. And he was saying things like, I can’t live without her. I no one else will ever love me.

Sherry:

And so if you tell yourself those irrational sentences over and over, you begin feeling despair. So when he came back into therapy, we then go and take apart those sentences. We take apart the sentence no one else will ever love me. Okay. Is that a scientific fact? It’s only a scientific fact if you’ve asked everyone out of the planet and they all said no. Right. You know, it’s only I can’t live without her. Well, it’s only true if you at birth, She was part of your bloodstream.

Sherry:

You know, you’ve lived without her for 25 years. You need air, food, and water, but it’s it’s breaking down the sentences To look for the fact and the the the disputing of the sentences, Challenging the irrational sentences over and over. Like, if a man goes for a job and fails to get the job, He begins to do what Albert Ellis calls awfulizing or general generalizing, which is also or or irrational. Now why is it awful you didn’t get the job or somebody says I can’t stand it? People will say that a lot. I can’t stand it. They’ll say that about something they’ve been standing for for 37 years. That no. That is absolutely a lie.

Sherry:

Yes. You can stand it. You’ve been standing it for 37 years. Let’s change your language. Not that I can’t stand it To I am no longer going to tolerate this. That’s a different sentence, and that’s more the truth. I want to work on changing this.

Rob Dale:

We we’ve we’ve spent a lot of time. I I love this the where this conversation, there’s so much rich, material and information that you’re you’re providing. Maybe, give us, the the the Coles notes or the summary of, what transactional analysis because that’s another area they spend a lot of time. We’ve certainly benefited from, your your, you know, what you’ve shared on that. Yeah. For the for the kinda just the layman who’s maybe listening to This episode had never heard of transactional analysis. How would you introduce the topic?

Sherry:

Sure. This is These are the 2 things you wanna know. These are like like, when someone taught us to brush our teeth, we would all do better if someone taught us transactional analysis and REBT together. These 2 go together hand in hand. We we have a I have a friend who works at a school system in Virginia. All the 1st graders are learning these, and it’s amazing what what’s happening is they’re learning these social emotional skills. But transactional analysis was, developed by Eric Berne. There’s lots of books on it.

Sherry:

The I’m Okay. You’re Okay. There’s books on Eric, you used the term before life script. Life script comes out of transactional analysis. But what this model is, it’s just what it says. It helps you analyze transactions. It helps you analyze transactions within yourself. You know that phrase when you say I said to myself? We state a lot of stuff to ourself.

Sherry:

So it’s important to go in there and look at what we’re saying to ourselves. It helps you then understand your interactions with other people. I this is a absolute fabulous model for marriage counseling, family counseling. I teach it to all the companies that I work with. You know, the the the sports program sports teams know it because, you you know, the all of us it what it has to do with are the parts of our personality. See, all of you’ve probably had that experience where you are having a conversation and you think it’s gonna go one way, and then all of a Suddenly, like, crap hits the fan, and you’re like, what just happened? Well, what just happened is the term in transactional analysis, I Sort of say parts of the personality TA called it ego states. So you, Eric, has 5 ego states. Rob has 5.

Sherry:

I have 5. Each listener, you have 5 parts of your personality that you could be in at any given time, And that’s the the just briefly, parent, adult, child. We have a parent part of us that we got from growing up. We have a child part of us that again came from our childhood, carries a lot of the baggage and garbage from our childhood, and then the adult rational part. The reason these 2 theories go so well together is because once people, Like, if I teach you these parts of your personality, and then it’s really it’s really cool because you start to recognize them in your partner or your your Mother or your sister, and and it helps you gain perspective because you’re like, okay. I’m expecting to go deal with my mother right now, but I can clearly see she’s in her not okay child or she’s in her critical parent ego state. It gives you some perspective, to begin to learn what these ego states are. And then once people get that, it’s like, oh, okay, Sherry.

Sherry:

I got it. I got what these ego states are. The the idea was to stay in my adult because here’s a here’s a a phrase that’s, people in their adult ego states Never fight. You don’t have fights. People in their ego states don’t have drama. You you can disagree. Like, Adults disagree and adults handle conflict, but they don’t have these dramatic knock down, drag out, storm out the door, scream at each other like the house is on fire. You know, it’s so REBT, when people get it, then they say, how do I how do I stay in my adult? You stay in your adult in your self talk.

Sherry:

There’s certain language in self talk that’ll put you right in your critical state or in your not okay state. So it’s really, I know it I’m throwing a lot at you, but these are if if you have any way you don’t like feeling, It it it is worth it to learn these 2 therapies. If I only had to have people learn 2 things, it would be these 2 things.

Eric Deschamps:

Well, so and I I I one of the things that, yeah, of course, this model was a model that you taught us and and used in, our work together, and I still, remind myself regularly, especially if I’m heading into a tough conversation or I’ve just been in a tough conversation, and I say to myself, adult Ford. Adult Ford. I remember you teaching me that. Right? Adult Ford, which is the rational the most rational, mature part of us wanna bring that forward. But talk to us so that’s the goal, ultimately, is to live, spend more time in rational adults, and less time in those, unhealthy 2

Rob Dale:

parents, 2 chill

Eric Deschamps:

2 parents, 2 children. So talk to us about those things. What are the 2 parents?

Rob Dale:

What are the 2 child?

Sherry:

Okay. Yeah. The because 5 ego states, parents broken down into critical parent and nurturing parent. The child’s broken down into not okay child and okay child. The ideal profile, we wanna have a big nurturing parent part of That’s the part that does nice things for yourself. It does nice thing for your others. You wanna have a big free child. You wanna have that Fun part.

Sherry:

A lot of people grow up and then they stay really they become stoic, and they don’t have that fun, silly, playful part. And then you wanna have the big adult rational adult ego state. The 2 words that describe the adult are rational, the rational part, and the thinking part. So we wanna eliminate we carry critical parent stuff and not okay child stuff. All of the addictions, all of So shopping addiction, gambling, porn, drugs, alcohol, all that stuff comes out of the not okay child. And all of that stuff is just about trying to Plug up the holes in our cup. You know, when we don’t feel okay, we try to fill the void with many things. So we That that is the work of therapy is to develop that profile, get rid of the not okay child and the critical parent ego state, and help people grow the nurturing parts, The rational part and the the free child fun loving part.

Eric Deschamps:

Can you give us some examples of what someone, if they’re in their critical parent, if that’s where They’re kinda coming at life from what does that look and sound like, and what does not okay child if we’re in that ego state? Again, if those are the states we’re trying to, spend less time in and and move over to more healthy state, what are some of the things we look for that would tell us we’re in critical parent or not okay child?

Sherry:

Critical parent the critical part is the it’s the judgy part, like judgment of self, judge but of others, it’s rigid. It’s inflexible. It has a lot of shoulds and musts and demands and fact tos. And, the the not okay child part is, as I said, all those things that we attempt to use to escape from pain, The not okay child has fit. It it, you know, has temper tantrums just like not okay, just when our children are not okay and having temper tantrums. So the the the the thing to recognize is When emotions are out of control and we are not performing at our best self, you are likely in one of those 2 ego states. The adult the adult ego state is is pretty rational and doesn’t get knocked off kilter Even in the face of, like, the adult ego state, you know, handles hard things. I mean, they have really hard things happen, But you’re able to handle them without deteriorating, without getting broken by them.

Eric Deschamps:

I think it’s Albert Ellis who talks about, who who is the founder of REBT, that you’ve been talking about already on the show here, who talked about that one of the issues is that our tolerance for frustration is too low. Right? So it doesn’t take much, to knock us off, Kildren. And I can’t remember if it was Ellis who also said the following or if I heard this somewhere else, but our our frustration tolerance is too low, and our emotional reactivity is too high. So imagine if we have a low frustration tolerance, and it doesn’t take much to set me off emotionally. That is a recipe for disaster, unhappiness, misery, because, again, we are never victims. We are choosing our response, but we have programmed ourselves to respond in such a way that it doesn’t take much to knock us off off kilter. The goal ultimately is, I think, trying to increase our tolerance for when life doesn’t show up the way we want. So greater frustration tolerance while we’re dialing down the emotional reactivity.

Eric Deschamps:

And perfection’s not the goal. I I know I’m certainly not Jesus or Gandhi. And, but, I know that that work, it really does take a lot now, to knock me and and stuff that would, that would side track me or knock me off center for sometimes days, even weeks at times, now I’m finding the reset, is usually within a day or too. Or or sometimes within an hour, I’m able to look at it. I’m able to run what just happened through these filters, these lenses that you describe, right, that you’ve taught us, And you’re able to find your way out of stuff that before you would either just try to bury, hide from, run from, self medicate against, that you’re actually being able to find your way forward. So the tools really work.

Rob Dale:

Absolutely brilliant, I think, for sure. Share go ahead, Terry.

Sherry:

I was just gonna say because, you know, those are just 2 things that we 2 theories that we talked about. That’s why counseling is just something so great to to get into because there’s so many more. Like, Eric, you mentioned the term private logic. That comes from Ed Murian theory. Alfred Adler studied human behavior, and one of his phrases that’s really important is all behavior is purposeful. And So going after figuring out what the the purpose of our behavior is, sometimes you know it and sometimes you don’t know it, but, again, a reason to go after of this stuff. Another, Carl Jung, is that Jungian therapy is a big, rich source of therapy. And Carl Jung said that emotional maturity is when we are able to tolerate not things not being as we would have them be.

Eric Deschamps:

Right. Right. I love that. It’s, I remember Jim, years ago. He was kind of the 1st person after I tried a couple of counselors and it just didn’t work out. I was in a bad place. This is when my marriage was falling apart, and I went and spent some time with him in Houston. Saying to him, he I was describing some of what I was feeling and experiencing, and he says, you know, Eric, it’s okay.

Eric Deschamps:

You just haven’t developed the emotional maturity yet, to, any, again, was very compassionate how he said it. But, man, did my back ever go up. Like, inside, I’m like, will you call me immature? And and just that response alone is like, well, that doesn’t sound very mature, but I think, and I don’t the from the reading I’ve done, our work together, When folks don’t do the work, right, when we try to hide from our pain, run from our pain, medicate against our pain, when we try to numb our pain, When we find ourselves in frustration frustrating situations or in conflict of any kind, we revert back. We move from, being I move from being a 52 year old grown ass man, and I can easily go back to what I was like at 8 years old. And and use so if if I’m not getting what I want, I’ll pout or I’ll I’ll yell or I’ll right? Like, all these immature ways of reacting, we think we’re okay, but these are symptoms that there’s some work here to be done and that one could find a lot more joy in life if we weren’t plagued by these issues. We’re we’re about to wrap up the show, Sherry, because we know you’ve got a a time limit coming up on you very, very soon. Quickly here before we we sum up. Someone is hearing this.

Eric Deschamps:

They’re listening. It’s piquing their curiosity. What are 2 or 3 things that someone who’s considering going to seek out some help, which is one of the most courageous things a human being can do, What should they look for in a therapist?

Sherry:

Absolutely. And, yeah, do look for a therapist the same way you look for any health care provider. Right? So you may you may get a 1st opinion, a 2nd opinion, a 3rd opinion. Right? So interview them. If a therapist is offended, if you Call and ask them. Tell me your philosophy. Tell me what types of therapy you practice. Tell me if if they, in any way, you get any sort of Flack about that.

Sherry:

You probably wanna move on to the next therapist because the therapist should be excited to tell you about what kind of therapy they do doing what what the work would be like with them. So interview them, and then I always tell people, give it give it 3, 4 times with somebody because that 1st time or 2 is the intake. You might be nervous that they but if after a few sessions, You’re not really feeling a click? Like, you’re not really feeling like you could bare your soul with this person that you feel safe with them? You know, because what what what scares me or worries me is that somebody gets a bad experience with a therapist and then never goes back to it. If just like anything, there’s there’s there’s therapists that aren’t very good. There’s doctors that aren’t, lawyers that aren’t very whatever profession. So Shop around. Fun find somebody you can click with. I certainly have, am of the belief That finding someone who knows and practices cognitive, behavioral therapy is, you know, what I believe.

Sherry:

Now I’m not saying that the other therapies, people you won’t have change with those because certainly You will if you have a good therapeutic relationship. I just believe that, cognitive therapy Speeds up the process, I would say.

Eric Deschamps:

Yeah. Yeah. I would I would echo that. Like, I think I said that, at the top of the show that I had tried different, methodologies. And although it felt like some progress, the progress with you was, like, light years ahead. It just seemed to really get at the issues quickly and begin to teach us cope skills, to respond differently.

Rob Dale:

Let let me let me ask you.

Sherry:

I was just gonna say I remember it was very it was one of my 1st classes in my master’s program, and it was with my mentor, Ed, and I’ve told him this. Because he’s in therapy, you know, and and he’s selling us on therapy. And he’s like, you know he said, I’ve had people come to me in the 1st session. And after the 1st session, they walk away going, I got more out of this 1st session with you than I got in 5 years of therapy with my other person. And I just remember thinking, oh, well, he thinks very highly of himself. Like, you know, it’s sort of like, oh, okay. And and it wasn’t till years later when I had people say exactly the same things to me because because sometimes you’ve spent years Processing emotion, but somebody didn’t have the tool to tell you what to do about it, what to do with it.

Eric Deschamps:

Right. Right. So good.

Rob Dale:

Well, you have You have done that for us. Yeah. And, absolutely. And the influence again that you have had in our lives individually, even in our lives together as we run our business, you know, the impact that you’ve had in, at Rhapsody as well as With the living richly model, it’s so, just so much. We appreciate you, continue to. We really have to have you back on because there’s So much that we could cover in these, in these topics, together. But thank you so much for spending some time with us Thank you. Today, Sherry.

Sherry:

Thank you so much for having me, guys. Thanks.

Rob Dale:

Wanna just thank you listeners who have, been tuned in, into this episode. Hope that you’ve received kind of some real good insight. Maybe it’s beginning a journey for you to explore some of these and it might be time for you to reach out to someone. Wanna encourage you to, take a moment and subscribe to our channel so that you don’t miss Any more of these episodes coming up, like, share. If there’s someone that you’re thinking about that maybe would just really appreciate today’s content, maybe Even tag them and let them know about the, episode and invite them to watch it as well.

Eric Deschamps:

Yeah. Again, we’ll also invite you to go to our website, living richly dot me. We’re gonna be putting a ton of stuff in the show notes, links where you can learn more about all of the models that, we discussed today, links where you can get ahold of doctor Sherry, if, you wanna find her online. This has been such a rich conversation. This is us truly paying forward to you, our audience, the the the work and the benefit we’ve received from this process. Our goal with this movement is to help people live their best life. Hard to do that when you’re carrying a ton of baggage. And when you can get free start to get free from that stuff, life becomes amazing.

Eric Deschamps:

So Thanks again for tuning in. We hope to see you next week. And until then, get out there and live your best life.

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