#45 Bringing The Magic To Your Marriage, with Matt Townsend

Dolman, welcome to the beer man.

Podcast.

I'm your host.

Greg Denning.

I'm the Creator and coach of the be the man master class and tribe.

Today's guest is my longtime friend and Mentor.

Matt Townsend.

Matt is a marriage coach and counselor, he's an author, he's on the radio time, he's on TV all time and speaking seminars, just spends his whole life helping couples.

Couples have great marriages or save their marriages if they're if they're dying and his advice his insights over Decades of working with couples is so.

So valuable just precious, you're going to hear things today that will just blow your mind like that in mind.

And I've had the privilege of knowing him for a long time.

In fact, he was close to Rachel when I met her.

And so we started our marriage together, and our relationship together.

And communication and contact with Matt and it's just been a joy watching him over those decades and the people he's helped.

And so I wanted to have him on the show of course, because what could be more important gentleman than having a rock-solid loving intimate, wonderful relationship with our wives in this, this is gold.

In fact, I hope you share this this episode with your wives and you listen to it, take notes.

Let's do with her discuss it.

Share it with friends, family colleagues.

Leave it.

Leave a review.

If you like it afterwards, give us a rating and be sure to subscribe to podcast.

But this this is just pure gold for being a great husband and for building a phenomenal marriage and he's going to give you the insights things, he's seen change.

Just in the recent years.

Last year's things are things have shifted and men and women are facing different challenges and struggles and he points that out.

He's got a finger on the pulse for marriage and I know you're going to get a lot out of this.

So take notes, you can jot things down right down Impressions to come to you and commit gentlemen, commit to take action and create an absolutely extraordinary marriage.

Matt, I am so grateful to have you on the show brother.

Appreciate I mean, all you do and and so we'll just give I'll give back on here, but like it's been 22 years, man, ever. / and you had a big influence on us like getting married, Rachel talks about you so our whole family talks about your time in like and so that connection we've always just had you had a big place in our hearts brother and you've been doing so much good for marriages.

So I was thinking like I've got to have you on here to share all the stuff you've seen and learn it and what you get help.

So, let's I'm honored, I'm honored and, you know, I'll never forget when I met When Rachel brought you into me.

I dude, I knew right then that you're going to like, take take the World by storm.

You are a firestorm man and I love to see what you're doing.

You guys what a pair and when anybody that watches, you needs to know, like this isn't show, this is for Real everything.

The Dennings show, they are and no one's perfect, right?

But you guys are the real deal, so it's cool.

I get to speak on a lot of podcasts and Not every one of them do I believe or is as sincere and deep as you can great to be here.

Yeah, we're excited.

Give us, give us.

Give us a little bit of your background man.

Yeah, because you were, you were working with couples when I met you.

So you've been in this game for a long running time 25s years.

So, I have a really weird history, my parents divorced when I was eight.

So from eight years on, I always wanted to do relationship stuff and try to figure out what that is, right?

Like is that a therapist?

That a lawyer.

I wanted to be a mediator.

Really is what I thought I wanted to do.

So I got a Bachelor's degree in journalism which got, which was actually really handy for where we are today.

When everything you have to do is you have to make your own content.

So got a master's degree in conflict resolution and got a job at Franklin.

Covey company used to travel the country.

For them was an executive coach, basically leadership trainer, and and consultant work.

A lot with Stephen Covey, amazingly got to sit in his office and learn from him.

And then on my, on my side, I started mediating divorces thought.

I thought I would be fun Greg, like, what could be more fun than terminating love best.

Sounds hard is what that sounds like it was horrible.

Except in doing that.

I learned how to start implementing all of this content.

So with cuffy, I trained corporate Executives all over about how to deal with difficult people.

And I realized that, man, you can learn this stuff.

But why are they teaching couples?

So, every couple that would come into divorce had the same problems, they just didn't know how to do anything with it.

And so right then I got this idea, let's start training.

So this was 20-something years ago. 22 years ago, let's start teaching people how to talk but let's and let's get it to the couple's and let's get it to the people who need it most.

So I started building content, in fact, T', the ultimate history of it is when I worked at Franklin Covey company.

I don't know how much, you know about it.

They had a book called 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

There was another book that came out, that was called first things first, which was about the private Victory.

And Stephen Covey, always used to teach for every public Victory.

You have, you have to have a private Victory first, so, private Victory, always precedes, the public.

So in the private Victory, those were the first three habits of the seven habits, you know, be proactive, put first things first thing car.

No be proactive.

What is it begin with the end in mind.

But first things first, they never had the public Victory book written.

And so, while I was at cubby, I started writing the public Victory book, which is about think win-win seek first to understand, then to be understood and synergize.

So I was putting that book together with the dream that someday.

I'd write that book was Stephen Covey and then I got this opting after getting so much of it done in my life and my Master's Degree, I went and got another master's degree in human development.

I went got a PhD in human and organizational systems.

Yeah, crazy.

And then you are single-handedly keeping that University going.

I was I totally was and then I let Then I then I got this prompting that I needed to leave and just go do marriages.

So I left the best gig around and started doing my own stuff, built my own company and then took off.

All this content and started teaching it to couples 21 years ago.

It was sort of what raining for your calling.

That's it, that's it.

Yeah, and minute by minute, I never knew ahead of time where I would go with any of it.

I just knew I was supposed to do this part and I did it and then I would go do the next part and they would it didn't make sense necessarily with the first part.

Then the third part came and the fourth part came, then all of a sudden.

Boom I'm in divorce mediation.

Then all of the sudden even I had the ability with all my background to start turning these marriages around and giving them the tools to start fixing their own stuff.

And I've been doing that for 20 plus years since he isn't that yeah, the path of life.

If you are paying attention and listening to God and to what's going on and moving forward.

I love you tried that this part and, and not until after that, then this part, then this part and then all fits together.

You like, well, I got Well, then, when you look back on your life and you have a different perspective, it all makes sense.

When you're in it, you don't have the depth of field, you don't have the ability to see the forest for the trees, but once you can look back, boom, it makes sense.

Now, it's funny because looking forward, I feel like I'm at a different level where I have a different perspective, so I can now start and a different level of competence and power and ability and resource where now I have more ability to create what I wanted before I involved into it and now I can be a Creator.

I think it's almost like you have to learn the level of maturity or gain the level of maturity, to become a Creator or a co-creator.

Yes, we thought her inspiration.

And now now he's lifted you to a point that your, your now, independent.

And now you can truly start becoming interdependent, exact powerful.

That's energy by the Way.

Right.

Let's beautiful energy.

Yeah.

He just I'm curious.

Like when you were starting on your own.

Did you feel confident or were you was there?

Some trepidation doubt, did you have some nights?

Like hey, man is this going to work?

Yeah.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, I always had I always had a sense of its really interesting confidence in my own, kind of calling like what I'm called to be.

I had confidence but not clarity.

So, I knew I knew I was the right space.

Being the right person but I didn't have Clarity exactly what I was to do.

But then and then there would always there are always nice.

There's just always nights.

And here's one of the things I've learned is the minute I start to really, like, have vibrate lacking confidence.

Usually means I'm not in my spirit, I'm not in my highest self, my Essence.

It usually means I'm in my mind.

So if I'm to in my body or my mind, I vibrate too much nervousness.

And then what if I just notice it the minute I noticed it.

I kind of leaned back away.

Take a big deep breath and then I find myself sitting back into just me and when I'm in me, I don't need to know tomorrow.

I can just be here now, right, when I'm in my mind, I want to have the plan and the whole layout.

I want to know everything.

You know, and again, make a plan, go ahead.

The neat thing is, you know, the world doesn't care about your plans.

An yeah, exactly.

Like, how many people just try to have the plan be perfect but the power I found is, in fact, I actually like, those moments where I'm not feeling as confident because it forces me to re-tune And to kind of, get back into my, my real spiritual or Essence itself to to then ground myself, and then move forward again.

Yeah, to get into that deep inner self, which I think is the real self or the best self.

Yeah, and not counterfeit.

That's awesome.

Man.

That's you.

And I and I do it, like, I do it all the time and then, but then I then your mind takes off and thinks you can handle it.

And then you get stuck and then you realize, oh yeah, oh yeah, okay.

Oh yeah, a little bit of Humble Pie, he come back down.

So okay.

So man you've been able to work with so many couples.

Now over these years and you meet with individuals, you mean it's couples.

I know you, you do big presentations, the back in action after the covid stuff have-nots happening.

You're on TV all the time.

Just lots of opportunities.

You have a, you have both a large circle of influence and then bring them in.

You know what, I want to have that, that small thing.

So let's let's go in brother speaking to men.

Yeah.

This, here's the cool thing about this.

You got 20 some odd years of seeing this in action, what works and what doesn't that is?

Like, it's wisdom because you've paid a price over a long term, it's like the mechanic you drive up and he's like, I know it's wrong, your car.

He like you only looked on the hood.

He's like, oh, I got you.

I got you, and you see it so much.

So, what what are you seeing?

Well, okay, two part question.

What are you seeing and has it shifted?

Shifted in the last decade or so.

Oh yeah, that's great.

Yes, I have seen it shift.

In fact, I think everyone can kind of see the shift of the there's really like a weird convergence going on of a bunch of issues that have never existed and I think technology is adding to a lot of it, I think for sure social media ads to stuff, our kind of our Falling away from institution and certain tradition.

Yep.

Where we a lot of people aren't seeing the need for institution that creates something now and it's really weird.

Like as even people are getting older before they marry fewer.

People are marrying.

Yep.

So I think there's also a really interesting shift in what we want from our partner.

What we think marriage is who we used to, you know, four years ago, marriage was just kind of a real Estate kind of transaction where it was the creation of families and then the sustaining of your fiefdom, right?

So my children within keep this part of this Township and we'd marry that family.

And that would secure the power structure of these two families, then it got into more just like, you know, we need to move our families on and, and create some Independence.

But now it's really an interesting Dynamic where Marriage more than ever before is now about, what's, what's good for me?

Do I like this, is this serving me?

It's not about serving a family.

It's not about serving a community, it's not about serving any other institution, it's not even an institution, it's just an additive thing to make me better.

Which is actually this.

So it's so counter to what a marriage could be your is.

That's right and that and so what it's made it is it's almost made of an ornament and it's something we ornament our lives with instead of something that we use developmentally to make us Godly and to make us lose our self.

And so, even what's happening is, you know, used to be guys were kind of known for just wanting a really hot wife and the girls, the women just wanted a really rich.

Rich man, hot wife, rich, man, but, but there's a weird thing that's shifted now where women now are becoming way more picky about how their man looks because they're so independent.

They don't need a man to provide sure as much as they need the man to meet their needs.

But guess what?

Men are doing.

Men now are wanting less and less to have to change.

So they don't want to marry a woman that's going.

Expect change.

So, all of a sudden that's a bomb right there, women don't know, man and men that men want to be wanted without any expectation of them changing.

And that creates a really weird marriage.

Because in all honesty, I am not the man.

I was when I was 22 and 21 and got married nor I'm glad my wife want to change.

Yeah.

And and so it's creating a different mindset and if now we have to pick and find the person, that is exactly what we want and there is no way that we should expect anything to change.

Then what is marriage a recipe?

That's a recipe for disaster right there, not possible.

Yeah, not possible.

And none of that I believe is.

So is what any of marriage was about.

Marriage is about two.

People learning to figure out how to lose themselves to find themselves.

And as they lose themselves, they actually take themselves to another level and another level.

And so, that's a huge Trend that we're seeing.

That's a big deal to, by the way, the whole movement away from institution is a big deal because it's funny in our institutions is where we create our roles and our identities, right?

So as a father, as a husband, that's a role but in that role it's also part of my identity.

It's it.

I now know how.

I now know I need to work, I now need to protect.

I need to provide.

I need to be there for my partner.

I now have relationships with her.

Family.

There's a hierarchy of respect.

I now need to grow my way into the family and then eventually as they age out, I will become the Elder and raise up a family with me.

So though that without those institutions, we don't have roles.

We don't have a role of a student going to school.

We don't, I mean, we could go to school any time we want.

You don't need.

You don't need the school to go to school, but we don't have the role of an employee.

We don't have the role of Leadership we don't have the role.

So even as we think of more and more people that are now more independent in their workplace, one thing that they might be losing is certain roles certain relationships, certain orders that probably we need to make sure we're doing like mentoring.

Like you talked about a lot Greg is get a mentor.

Get people that if you don't have a hierarchical business that you're in and you're running your own business, you've got to have mentors, you've got to have money, L, you've got to have senior leaders that you can go to and pick their brain and learn what the next level of creative co-creation looks like, right?

Yeah, Chloe, so all these roles are a big deal.

We don't even our connection to our own country, our own government, our own Constitution, without certain orders of those roles and relationships.

We don't know quite how to treat each other.

So that's a big deal.

Now, that creates one other thing, Greg that is life-changing Aging the most cool thing that I've ever gotten into, probably in the last 10 years is attachment stuff.

Have you gotten into that at all?

60 plus estimating, sixty percent of people in the western world right now.

Have a hard time attaching and connecting deeply with the people in their lives.

And that becomes one of the biggest drivers of why in our marriages, we fight and flight so much why our fight and flight instincts, kick on and why we can't communicate through some of the most basic issues of life.

And so if you're, if you have an unsafe attachment issue, you're either going to usually become a fighter, kind of an anxious attached.

It's going to control and demand or you're going to withdraw and detach a lot and in a lot of marriages, you only need one person doing it to start, to create a really funky pattern of that will pretty much cause every fight and every flighting moment.

So that's something that we can probably dive into for a bit because I just think if every man It understand their instinct to use fight or flight.

It makes sense having the world not in the out in the wild but you don't we don't need to engage fight or flight with our most intimate close partner and if it's turning on fight or flight was never a bonding tool fight or flight was always Survival Man, Bible sunk.

As like your wife is not a saber-toothed tiger, bro, like stand it She's not that bad, so that that really is something.

And then, when it gets down to our for needs right, everyone needs to know their lovable that they're capable that they belong and that they're safe.

Lovable capable belonging and safe.

I had a guy come in my office, that was worth about a hundred million dollars and he, he just didn't feel like he mattered in his marriage.

Nobody in the family listens to him, he runs a big company, nobody cares what he says at home.

And he said that he goes, I don't feel loved.

I don't feel like I'm capable in my own home, my wife, doesn't my wife tells me?

I'm not.

I don't belong.

And I'm not safe and contrast that with his At work when he speaks people jump when he gets things done.

So he's the man over there at home and he's nobody, right?

And that's interesting because that work.

That's his counterfeit.

Yeah.

Only his own ability to even make it happen but because this is what happened.

I asked him.

What's your earliest memory of feeling?

Like you're not love, you're not capable.

You don't belong in.

You're not safe, and he got emotional.

And he said, I was 15 years old, and I didn't make the baseball team.

I always made the baseball team.

I grew up with my friends in the baseball team.

In fact, he said I was good, but my parents weren't rich and we did.

They didn't know how to suck.

Cup and their parents weren't pushing on the coaches.

And they weren't showing up at everything, and I didn't make the baseball team and I go.

What did you do?

And so at 15, he felt unloved, incapable, not belonging unsafe.

And so what he did is he built a script, a behavior script, we call it BS, for short, he built some BS, and the script meant the minute, he feels that vulnerability.

He detached He fled and he escaped from that awkwardness.

I go.

So you didn't hang out with your friends.

He goes, no, like, they tried to get a hold of me and contact me, but I felt weird.

So I just disappeared.

He told the way Hollywood Drew.

I guess what he did after one year as a trying to go to school.

But never going to any of the parties, never going to dances never doing anything.

He quit school went and got his GED.

Went to college at 17.

Kind of became a loner, all by himself, got his degree in three years and about age, 20 started a tech company and grew it to a hundred million dollars.

And every time he didn't belong in the meeting with that person, if he could, he'd end up firing him.

If he couldn't.

He'd end up escaping hiring someone to manage him and he built an Empire.

And the interesting thing about the Empire is its way less intimate than his marriage and it's way less intimate than his family.

But what's funny is that's a script of a fifteen-year-old.

Yes.

And then old programming, it's all programming and here he is an adult male 50 and all I needed him to learn to figure out was when the little boy would appear.

Yeah.

When would the teenager appear and every time he started to notice the teen appearing, So, all I would ask him to do is to re script as the adult in that moment.

What do we do as an adult?

What do we do in is as an adult and weirdly he had ideas, well, I should stay.

And I'm like so if your kids felt that way, what would you do?

He goes, I would track him down and I would try to talk to him and I go, well, why don't you do that?

When your kids feel insecure about their relationship with you?

Why aren't you chasing him down and tracking him down?

And he just looked at me like, I don't know.

And I said well, it's probably because you're 15.

Yep.

That's happened.

Yeah.

That he runs the old script and he can't even see it.

So then I'm sitting there and I said, I go, I asked his wife, I go with.

You saw your husband as a 15 year old, just get Shattered by not making the team.

What would you do right now as an adult woman To go take care of that boy and she started to cry and she said I would go over to him and I would love him and I would tell him he's amazing and I would tell him he's capable and that's not fair and I would love him and I take them and I get him friends and I helped build him up, right then and then I asked her.

Why don't you do that for him right now?

But he's crying.

So notice she can serve his little fifteen-year-old that she can't serve be adult when he's 15.

But she knows exactly what to do for the 15 year old and so once we start to identify that little kid that's broken in us then we don't have to either control everything that's anxious attachment and we don't have to detach from everything.

Or we don't have to do a combination of both and so that's what I I see happening in every relationship, and we got to watch out for it because sometimes will counter it by going out and being an enormous success in every other way, thing else.

Yeah, because we can look ripped because it's easy and it's not easy, it's easier sometimes to go work out and get fit then face your 15 year old, you know, and sometimes the reason you're getting fit and we've all met him at the gym.

The guy that's got too big of a neck.

But he's probably trying to, he's probably trying to, you know, counterfeit his own insecurities that he picked up at 12.

So now he's reliving that same script as an adult.

I'm just going to be bigger or I'm just going to pick up more women or I'm going to be more manly or I'm going to be I do it doesn't matter whatever you're doing.

You want to make sure you're doing it by your essence and your highest self your real self.

And Not your your broken attached Mind and Spirit and not the vs.

Yeah.

So okay, so as you're describing those just such so many great examples there is it, is it more about that?

Is in your experience?

Is it more about underlying scripts and old programming things like that?

Then it is particular issues.

Yeah, great question.

You know what I find?

It's about.

There's generally three things.

That that tip it over the relationships over.

Sometimes it's just our differences, just typical differences, right?

And John gottman says about 60, whatever 7% of our of our problems or kind of unresolvable.

There's just differences.

Another part of it is our attachment that attachment.

I just described.

And another part of it is kind of our temperament.

It's it's our sensitivity.

It's our, it's our, I kind of look at it as two things.

It's your anxiety levels and it's your ADHD levels.

Mmm, right.

So so that's kind of in my world.

We call that high sensitivities.

That's a temperament and high stimulation Seekers.

That's another temperament.

And so what?

What a lot of times tips it over is you don't even No it but you're a high sensitive person and high sensitives.

It's a real thing.

We're about 20 percent of the animal kingdom.

Pick up four times more stimulation.

Then the and physiological stimuli right?

Then the other 80% they pick up.

More smells more heat, more energy, more vibration.

So those are the ones I'm way.

High sensitive so I can I can tell when they are turned off, I can if somebody's tapping.

In front of me, I can hear the tapping.

If I, if odors I was an EMT on an ambulance, when I was 20 21, and man, I could see anything but don't make me smell it.

And the minute I smell it.

My senses would go off.

So some of us are high sensation Seekers and that if you think about it, it's 20% of the Animal Kingdom.

So it's an evolutionary trait.

And what it makes some of us is way more able to read what's going.

Going on in the world.

Yes.

But then what we do is we then pick up four times more data and it tends to overwhelm, right is now, there's too much stuff.

And so, the high sensitives, then eventually get diagnosed with anxiety.

And then when they're anxious, they start either going over in their anxiousness, or they go under.

And the over is where they're mean and pissy and controlling, and demanding and reactive.

And the under is they've Edge, they escape, they detach, they hide away.

And if you go over or under it depresses you, so our mental health model, we always just make it a bunch of clinical diagnosis like, well, that's anxiety or that's depression.

What it also could be is high sensitivity that leads to overwhelm and overwhelm leads to some Version of action, that leads to a depression or over action and by the way.

So, as a high sensitive kid, Kid, I may not have ADD, I just may not focus because I have four times more information, right?

But if you don't know that that's a temperament.

If you don't know you have that temperament.

You think you're crazy.

Well I didn't one else is telling you you're broken.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Because well and then if you if you're too, if your to into stimulation, you can be high sensitive and what's called a high sensation Seeker.

I think I'm both Israel.

I bet I know you are.

Definitely you are and I bet Rachel's for sure High sensitive but may not high.

Sensation seeking exactly.

Yep.

So what the high sensation Seeker is, is the guy that will go cliff jumping but won't jump once.

They'll jump 50 times.

I just gotta keep going.

I'll tell Rachel like, hey, babe I'm going skydiving.

I just gotta get out.

Now, you're a high sensation, so that's temperament.

But if all of a sudden, if you don't know your temperament and you don't know just gender differences and overall differences and you don't know your attachment History.

Those are the things that really I see are tipping marriages over and we're what the number one thing that tips us all over is our ignorance.

We don't know any of these things.

We don't know any whole idea.

What's happening within ourselves and to our spouse.

That's right.

That's right.

And if you don't know it Angry, why is this happening?

And you think it's normal.

You talk to your neighbor and he was like, yeah, that's the way it is.

Yeah.

Oh man.

That's what I call.

I call the high sensitives Ferrari.

In a world full of Chevys, some people aren't Ferraris right?

So high sensitives, make horrible Navy, Seals horrible, but they make awesome Intelligence Officers.

They can read the patterns of data and they see the trends and patterns, but don't put them in a hole with guns going off, where they're going to have to shoot someone too much is because you know what that creates.

So high sensitives are much more prone to have PTSD in war events.

During war event.

Yes, it's too overwhelming too much and then they replay it and it just is all the time in their head where someone else can sneak past that but they're like, no, it's all here now.

That's right.

So imagine imagine that if you don't know any of this and you're supposed to be a man.

Everyone wants to be a Ferrari but so if you're not a Ferrari, you're a Chevy Suburban.

Let's say Chevy Suburbans can go everywhere.

It's an awesome car and you can have eight people in it but a lot of Ferraris prefer fewer people just a couple and they and they might but that some Ferraris by the whale of a lot of people, but they need to take breaks and get away and they can be genius to a point and then it's overwhelming and they pull away.

So if you don't know this, but you're supposed to be a man.

This is it.

This is with you, right?

I played Little League football as a high sensitive and I get in the Huddle to call the play and I could smell Tommy's crotch from across the Huddle.

I'm like distraction like tummy.

Like, have you washed your pants yet?

Like you got to take your pads on your mama.

Wash your pants.

You got to wash your pants and the coaches are on the side, like, call the play, call the play.

I like Tommy hasn't washed his pants.

And so I probably not that but I get tackled.

I remember getting tackled in some guys, sweat was all over my arm and I'm like, what the flip?

Who's losing this much fluid?

Make sure you're drinking, guys.

It was like, but so I knew and I'm and I pick up enough info to know that this isn't manly, it's not manly.

It about everyone else.

I worried about everyone else getting their number of plays, I worried about everyone else.

Making sure their their dreams were made, so these differences are real and if you don't know what they are, Are you there Greg?

Yes.

There we go.

It's back.

There's a little glitch there.

So is this is it predominantly one side or the other?

Our women generally more than men.

No that's what's neat about Lily, it's a it's a genetic trait, it's an evolutionary trait.

I mean it's an evolutionary trait, which means it's evolved to have 20% of men and 20% of women.

Twenty percent.

So it rests it's a survival kind of thing for both the birds.

Yeah.

It's a everyone.

If you go into marriage and you're completely clueless about this stuff and there's any mismatch there and you don't know what's going on, why?

I remember yeah, when we first got married I was like wait this is the way I experience things and ignorantly thinking like wolf I experience it like this.

That Rachel should too that's it.

And I'm like, why why are you having this different experience?

Yeah, it was so frustrating to me but it won't matter if you're both Chevys.

And it might not matter as much if you're both Ferraris but if you're a Ferrari and they're a Chevy, it's going to matter.

Yeah.

And it's also going to drive up the likelihood of attachment issues.

Because you experience everything more acutely, everything's bigger, and everything's more real.

Oh, that's big right there.

So everything's a big deal.

Yeah, so of all the people I see that are how that are having and I a lot of my clients are at the point of divorce, right?

So about 35% of my clients are deciding if they're going to divorce of that group that comes in significantly.

Portion it amount of them like eighty to ninety percent of them have this High sent.

One of them has this High sensitivity interesting because that's why they're in Conflict.

Yeah.

And about, well, probably about 50% of them, but then about 80 percent of them have attachment issues.

And they've polarized their life so much that they fought for so much that everything seems polarized, right?

It's just yeah, it's just constant, everything's about.

But what's so cool is once you teach him about their their temperament, and then you teach him about attachment and then we just start getting real and talking you immediately start cutting through it.

And it's it's we're different.

All that is is we're different.

But like any it usually in this office I don't ever turn my overhead lights on.

I have lights from my Windows, the sunlight from the windows.

I don't turn my overhead lights on because I don't want more stimulation.

Yeah right.

But when I'm going to do a speech tonight, I'm going to go speak to 300 chaplains and their spouses know super cool.

And so on my way there I will.

We'll turn up music and I'll start pumping myself up and it will amp me up for the stand.

Then I can deliver and then after I've delivered, I'll schmooze, but if I have to schmooze really long time, it would kill me.

So I eventually will then leave.

And when I drive home, And she talks to me more on the way home, right?

And we've just learned how to do it, it's who you're working with.

It's cool.

You're working with.

What's happening your skills?

Your you?

Yeah.

No.

It's beautiful.

And it's and it actually it doesn't have to be.

It's not a curse.

These differences are real.

That's I really think that's why God put you together.

It's to maximize the difference and to maximize Maximize your willingness to submit.

To the goodness of another.

And and allowing your partner to correct your own weakness to which, which I think is the greatest advantage and benefit of a marriage.

Is you have this person?

You love more than anywhere else in the world helping you become better.

But you have to be willing to change where those students always said earlier if I go in to the best refinement model that exists and I say no thanks.

Don't you dare suggest that I make improvements, right?

Then I Lose.

I'm one of the greatest things in life and you can see why you like that idea of not improving or developing, or just being loved for who you are is because you have attachment issues.

You just want to know.

You're lovable capable belonging and safe.

That's all you want to know and so that's but that's that's born of a deep insecurities insecurities.

Yeah.

But he's what?

But what you do is so the way you, the way you protect your insecurity is you set up boundaries and your boundaries are to make sure no one else can hurt you but the minute you make boundaries so no one else can hurt you.

You have now disabled everybody from and yourself helping actually learning to grow.

Yeah, with that, our goal, should our goal shouldn't be to make rules to keep everyone out.

Out, our goal should be to become strong enough to let everyone in that everyone in.

But, okay, so I went through this without knowing it, when I was early on, aren't you remember my story?

I was out on my own at 16, right?

And hurting and so I'm like, oh, that hurt.

I'm putting up walls, I have to protect myself.

So I built a fortress only later to realize I just done is created.

Solitary confinement.

Right.

I'd I taken my own journey and my own experience and walled myself in, right?

Yeah, so then the loneliness drove me to Tear Down the Walls.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, this is.

This is so profound.

So, beautiful, brother.

Yeah, I want to ask specifically.

There was there was a few things I read that for a long time, money or money issues was the thing people thought about the most, but then it switched.

And they said that sex, it was the sexual relationship that became the number one topic of conflict.

And it's almost like I want to ask and I want your perspective but after Everything you just said is like it's somewhat, it's not the thing, it ain't the grapes like, you know, Aesop's Fable it ain't the graves.

It's it's all the underlying stuff.

But these issues do come up.

I'm sure that's this.

That's what I call the smoke.

So, smoke is everything we fight about, that's not the real issue.

It's the money, the sex, the kids, and it just depends where you are right in the marriage.

Like sex is usually a problem again.

It depends on how you identify, how your valued, right?

But money is an issue.

If you notice money and sex are about love and power.

It's about you wanting me.

It's about so wherever there's smoke.

There's going to be fire.

Fire is the real.

What I call the starved issue, the real, the real triggered issues are the fire.

So anytime I hear money issues.

So I had a couple that was fighting over a five hundred dollar purse The window $400, the husband couldn't believe a woman bought a four hundred dollar purse.

That's ridiculous.

Nobody needs a 400 dollar purse.

She clarifies, it's not a purse, it's a bag.

Keith little things, I don't care.

What you call it.

Nobody needs it.

She's you.

Nobody needs a four hundred dollar back.

She said, I really how much was your golf bag that you just bought for your clubs and he's like, what are you talking about now?

They're fighting about a golf bag, right?

And then, I need that, that's my dear.

And that was the four hundred that was 370.

And now they're fighting about 370, is 400 you dork.

So now they're fighting about how you around.

So, as a mediator, I would see that happen all the time.

They just fight in the Smoke fight in the smoke, but no one would pay attention to the fire.

So, the fire AR are those what I call the starved issues?

That's what I wrote.

My book on is feeding the starved needs safety.

Is a star of need, everyone needs to feel safe, trust appreciation.

Respect validation.

Dedication.

So underlying every Smokey issue, you'll hear the starved issue.

The woman wanted to be safe enough to shop without being judged by it.

The man wanted to be financially safe so we're not wasting money.

The woman eventually got mad at him because he cared more about golfing than her, so that's dedication.

That's part of the starved issue.

So if you listen to Somebody's complaint, You'll usually be able to detect what the real issue is.

Is it a safety issue?

Trust and appreciation?

If we're fighting about home chores it's how we want to be appreciated if we're fighting about what you called me in front of your parents.

That's probably respect.

So what I see a lot is there's a pattern of male-female that's really common.

We're a lot of times when women are afraid or unsafe, they're going to say something. and when they say something, the man feels disrespected or ashamed, And when he's ashamed or disrespected, he's going to make her unsafe.

He's going to either blow up and get mad or he's going to run away.

And withdraw.

Also, on walk walk through that one more time that is genius in that this whole thing of ignorance, right?

Understanding this pattern, you just described beer critical yet.

Shame her fear makes her worried, are we going to pay our taxes Greg?

And you're like, oh my gosh, of course, we're paying our taxes.

We pay.

Pay our taxes every year and then she's like, why are you yelling?

It's not a big deal.

Can I not just ask a question?

Well yeah.

Do you think I'm a thief?

You think I'm an idiot?

Yeah, so now we're fighting but what we're fighting about is her fear of maybe what she doesn't know her, lack of safety and his need for respect and when he's not respected, he'll shame.

So men shame far too much and women fear far too much, so fear began Shame fear because shame.

And then that takes us back to those attachment issues.

I don't feel lovable.

I don't feel capable.

I don't belong, I'm not safe.

What's my script?

Blow it up, what's my script run away and we just run away or we blow it up.

And that's, that's your fight.

That your Thursday night fighter, your Friday night fight and all we really want deep down is to just be cared for right to be loved.

Love and connect and we end up sabotaging the very thing we want.

We take this funky little Vehicles.

Yeah and we ruined the very thing we're seeking for the new year we want.

So desperately will get reactive and ruin what we almost had and and watch what we're talking about.

Greg it's normal.

This is the norm.

This is predictable.

So even when we talk about it it sounds like wow, where did Come from that, it come from the place that we all know, like we've all lived there.

There's a great quote that by Carl Jung says that which is most personal is most universal.

Yes.

So the most personal insecurities you have is universal every man's got it.

Yeah, but what we want to claim is, we're so unique and honestly we're not and there.

Fact have you heard have you read anything by Timothy Keller?

No, holy cow.

Timothy.

Keller is kind of a, he's a Christian writer.

But listen to this quote.

This is the most unbelievable quote you'll ever hear, okay?

He says to be loved.

So what we are all seeking and this sounds real fluffy for men, but in a nutshell, this is all we wanted from that baseball team when we were 15 or from our parents, it's or from our wife.

We want this.

So, listen to be loved, but not known is comforting, but superficial To be known and not loved is our greatest fear.

But to be fully known and truly loved is well, a lot like being loved by God.

It is what we need more than anything.

It liberates us from pretense, it humbles us out of our self-righteousness and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.

Boom, all we want is to be fully known.

By the people around us and and truly love.

Yes.

Which what?

What you just described.

That is true intimacy.

That's it.

Into me, see intimacy?

Yeah.

So you see it all?

Yeah and love me anyways.

And that's the so intimus comes from the root or the intimacy comes from the Latin root word intimus which means the in deep inner being So, but we're too afraid to let that out and because aren't it love.

We want love.

Ironically, and so I'm like, I'm gonna hide this.

That's right.

You the most of that is.

So that's our, that's the male shame inherently.

That's our shame, which is why we want to be revered and respected because that'll take care of our shame.

And what the women want is, they're too afraid to just love you.

Like, I always joke that my wife will always say, Matt tell me what you're thinking, you never tell me what.

Thinking and in my head, I'm like, yeah, you know, you can't handle what I'm thinking, you can't handle it and she's like, no, I really can.

I really can.

And like, so then I might say, I was thinking about having sex and she's like, I was that all you think about exactly?

Or one time I'm like, we're driving to st.

George in southern Utah and I just thought I wasn't gonna do it, but I was thinking there was a dry river that went under the freeway.

And you could see water, you know, a flash flood would go that way.

And so what I was thinking is if I took our Suburban with our family in it and I hit the bridge and I jumped the Suburban across the river.

Could I land it?

What?

I clear the river.

This is all going on in my head, right?

What?

I clear the river and I've done the same thing.

I'm rolling along like them, could I?

And, and, and then she's looking at me.

Like, that's what you're thinking, when you're driving and I'm like, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do it, but I want to know if I could, I was just, so he can't handle what I'm thinking, and because, because we all kind of know that others around us, might not handle it.

We don't show ourselves.

So and then so no one can really know us and because we're so afraid they won't love us and so that all of this goes back to the same thing.

So then what we do is we build something that we know everyone will love.

I can't tell you right now.

I have clients millionaires, billionaires, airplanes Lambos, you name it.

I've got tons of them but they all want what we just talked about, they want to be known.

Lee and loved completely everyone wants that, and they'll every one of them would tell me all of the Lambos and the big things they've built are nothing more than to have that little thing Matt.

Yeah, that's it.

And it sprays that is that manifesting for them in this desire to be respected.

Hmm is that kind of what's Happening?

Yeah, that's the counterfeit because then if men respect me By the way, and everybody like the minute you reach the level of notoriety or fame, they don't.

That's the first part of that.

Quote, you are known but not love or you might be loved but nobody knows you.

So everybody loves the movie star but very few people know him.

Right?

So it's comforting, but it's superficial so still lonely.

Yeah, you're still only and so this is amazing.

I just had I got a call from a friend.

Whose sister is dying of brain tumor.

And she's kind of a fan of what we do and watch as a lot of the stuff I teach.

So she just found out its terminal.

It's going it's it's taking over, there's no changing it.

She's going to die and she just wanted to come meet with me special.

And so the whole time I'm like, what do you do?

So she came in yesterday, but you get to sit with somebody that's on the end of it all.

Yeah.

And what you hope?

Hope is by the time you get to that point, you're no longer chasing the need to be loved and the need to be known.

Hopefully you would hopefully you could get through that by then.

But weirdly her last time on Earth is going to be about that and what she came to the resolve was she when she talked about the problem, she talked about it as a wise 70 year old who's about to die.

And every once in a while she'd break into Script of a little seven-year-old girl who's being victimized by everyone else's lack of caring and all I had to do was show her went that, did you see what happened?

Right there, you went right to your seven-year-old that.

There's no one on this earth, right now, that's more powerful in this woman Circle than she is the dying person is always the most powerful because nobody, she's going where no one's going has been.

And where Everyone's afraid to go and she's doing it.

So we sat and built a bunch of tools for her to get everyone back into that intimate moment with her.

And in that intimate moment, what she wants to do, is teach each of them, she knows him, she knows them, and she loves them.

And she, we got tools and now like she's going to bring her husband over and sit him down and teach him.

Because what he does is instead of getting intimate and vulnerable vulnerable about losing her, he gets Technical and starts preparing the financials and and he'll spend Hours preparing the financials instead of being with his wife really connecting and he's just trying to detach.

So every one of us is this is, this is, this is the memoriam where to the stoic thought.

Remember, everyone dies, right?

So there's going to be a point and we all need to live so that this isn't a problem.

There's going to be a point, we're going to die and everyone will be gathered around us and if you had two months to live what Would you want the relationship to be?

And we've got to, we've got to make it so we're safe enough in that moment to be real.

I'd last thing I would want in my last hours of life is to talk about my portfolio and how much money I made or how big my company got or my social media draw, you know what I mean?

So, a really good thing for everyone to think about is, if you had two months, if you had two years to live, go write down everything.

You would, how you would change your life knowing you had two years, then go do.

If you had two months to live, how would you adjust?

Who would you make sure is around you regularly?

If you had two months to live and if you had two days to live, what would you do?

And if you had two hours to live, what would you do?

And if you had 20 minutes to live and get down to your the essential things, right?

Remember thorough went to the woods because you wished to live deliberately To confront the essential Facts of Life and see what life had to teach and not when he comes to die, discover that he has not lived.

So hmm.

You want to get the essential facts and and then you've got to get good enough at those essential facts to sit.

So, in one day yesterday, I sat with a woman who's dying, And I sat with a couple that's getting married in 10 days and just found out that she's a rabbit, High sensitive, good find that out.

Uh-huh.

Early on, super good to know, right?

Then he's a big high sensation Seeker.

So it's like the Dennings.

Yeah.

And then I found out and then the last one was a really good family friend.

That is divorcing.

And they made the decision in me with me in their presence.

They, we made the decision, they made the decision, their divorce me, and we talked about how we're going to do it.

And both were crying.

You get to see that in one day, then that's one day.

One day.

And so today, I'll do it again, will do.

This will do two or three clients and then I'll have 300 chaplains.

Yeah, and again, they're all seeing that every day, right?

But that is the essence of what you're here for, right is to learn, not to build a bigger facade.

Like you talked about, you don't need bigger forts, you need the force to sit in the uncomfortable space and And be one and create some at one minute.

That is manliness.

Yeah, that's it.

You want to talk about manliness?

That's the highest form, right?

You sit in it.

Yeah.

And you and you and the less you need.

So the best sign that you are.

There is the less stuff you need.

You don't need like if you have a glioblastoma and you're going to die, what do you need?

Like I'd ever hear the story.

Eckhart Tolle told about the ring, there's a woman in that he was counseling and she had an heirloom ring.

She was a single woman about 45.

She was dying of cancer and her grandparents or somebody had grandparents have given her an heirloom ring.

And it was so valuable to her because that kind of made her the most important grandchild kind of thing.

And, but she's dying of cancer.

And so, as she's she's kind of withering away.

Way.

She, they took the ring off and she gave it to a nurse and the ring disappeared.

And so Eckhardt came to visit her.

And as he's talking to her, she's like a, my rings gone.

I mean, and she was all upset and frustrated and and eckhart's like, will now that the Rings missing what have you lost?

Like of worth.

What have you lost?

And she's like, well, I mean, the value of the ring and just the Memento that I could have given to someone and just the connection to my, he's like, we still have the connection, right?

Yeah.

And she's like, yeah, and he's like, this is was so mind-blowing, he's like, you know, you know, you're dying, right?

And she's like, yeah.

And he said, you know, when you die, you're not taking the ring with you, right?

And she's like, yeah.

And then he said, when do you think you're going to be ready to let the Ringo?

In the end, it's it all goes back in the Box.

Yeah.

Right.

It all goes back in the box and so the ring just becomes the symbol supposedly of her being more.

Loved and more known, But the symbol will never hold what we know in our s quality.

Yeah, so, the being the real human, the real man would be able to be able to sit in it.

Let the wave of insecurity come don't have to fight it.

Let it just roll over you and then get back into peace and sit in it and quit.

Putting things up, that's why Buddha Gandhi mother.

Sir Christ, every one of them ended up walking away with nothing.

Yeah, they had no things that was binding them to anything.

What was binding them was the, were their principles commitment and love, and sacrifice, and service, and character and hard work, and integrity and that's what binds us.

That's what makes us the man, and the minute you feel the reaction.

It doesn't make you less of a man that's actually part of being man, react.

Notice it.

And then let it go.

And don't say, yeah.

And sit.

Don't run, don't fight.

Yeah, notice it feel it.

Let it go.

Stay with it power.

Dude.

That's cool, man.

It's awesome.

Well, this is, these are the, these are the essentials of life, right?

And we complicate it with everything else.

Marriage is that simple?

It's not supposed to be easy, it won't be easy.

In fact, it's not supposed to be And and it's not always right.

You know, we you can romanticize it that it's always right, you know.

But it's not sometimes there's a there's abuse, there's painful stuff.

Sure.

And and many times we give up on it way before we need to And a lot of times when you're giving up on it it's not you giving up on it.

It's your 13 year old script.

It's your 12 year old script.

It's either going to if you have a controlling partner that's their 12 year, old script L healthy adult needs to control.

They don't and if you tend to be really upset by being controlled, I bet you have a 12 year old script, a vein controlled and we used to think that it was always mom and dad that did it.

But now we know Oh that you can pick up these scripts anywhere and the answer is not running because if you divorce you'll still have a 60 or 70% chance in your second and third marriage of two, half plane that script a man, the script hasn't changed.

So I always say, but the marriage on the Shelf, let's fix the script.

Yes, learning these skills.

Let's learn to talk, let's learn to be real then.

Let's bring the marriage down and then let's decide if we want to fix it.

So of my 80% of my Clients that I work with 80% that the ones that are struggling in their marriage thinking of divorce, we we have an 80% chance of those people fixing their marriage, nice.

Because when they get the skills and they can talk all of a sudden.

That's all we wanted.

Now you're knowing me and now you're loving and now you're trying to sacrifice for each other and weirdly that.

So it grows love and and can one I'm curious I have I have a belief about this but I want to know is can one individual in the marriage going through this process transforms marriage?

Yeah, yeah.

Because by the way, can one person absolutely screwed.

It up.

Yep.

Yeah so if you have a power that's that's the that's the beauty of the system, right?

So if one person can universally screw it up, one person can also universally enhance it.

The quote is two, heads are better than one, but one is better than 0.

So now, it doesn't mean everyone has to choose, but what I honestly believe very few of us in marriage.

Marriage are actually choosing most of us are just reacting.

I agree.

Doesn't this habitually are just living the way.

We know how to live.

Yeah.

And survival forgiveness.

Just default mode all the time.

Yeah, yeah.

Isn't it?

And that's, it's cool.

Once you start to notice it and then what part of the problem are you, what are their needs and wants?

What do you both want most together and then what can I do right now?

Those are just for lights, but part of the problem, I self-awareness empathy.

What are their needs and wants Vision?

What do we both want most Together, Big Picture?

What's the most important thing I can do right now, right Consciousness?

So use your self-awareness, use your empathy, use your vision, use your conscience to guide, you back to the path and then great c.s.

Lewis quote, the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow's another Monday morning.

So you'll have to suffer your cross actively where you get your crown.

We start again tomorrow and tomorrow morning, go to get Transcendence and your back and you've liked reach, the highest levels of transcendence.

And now we've got a sweep the floor and plant the garden.

Exactly.

That's got it.

It's just what you do.

Yeah, I gotta ask one more because I got this comes up so often.

And this is, this is really, really difficult.

So you take, let's take a gentleman for example.

And he notices some of these challenges, some scripts may be in his spouse.

Yeah.

What's the best way to for him to begin helping her?

Yeah, great question.

So so when you ask that one thing I think about, if you think of a bull's-eye In a bull's-eye.

There's in the middle of a bull's-eyes.

What I call your spirit.

Here are your essence who you really are outside of.

That is another Circle will call your mind.

How you think you should be kind of the world's scripting.

So a lot of your scripting comes from that and then outside of, that is your body, which is your Chemistry.

So when I work with somebody and we I want to try to help them to improve.

First thing.

I've got to do is make sure I'm not coming at.

At them from my mind.

I have to be in my spirit and because we're here's why.

So again, I don't want to get all scriptural churchy but like, Christ always taught without the spirit.

You don't teach So if I can't be in my Essence, then I shouldn't say anything about you're speaking from a different space.

That's not a good one.

That's right.

And so what will happen?

Our two minds will start fighting.

And to habitual chemistry's will fire.

So the body and the mind starts fighting the body and the mind.

So that's what I was teaching that woman instead of getting in the body-mind fight as you're dying, no one can get to Essence faster than she.

And yeah, because she's so close to the veil.

And so what I would do, if I really wanted to influence it is I would I would get in, I'd get in to make sure I'm in my spirit, not just my mind, mad about her script, then I would use that spirit that Essence to try to take the place of her.

And a question, I asked a lot is, what is it like to be her?

Married to you, married to me, haha, you and then, and then what it will give me is compassion that gives me empathy and I want to go there until I feel moved and then start thinking about what, you know, her script might be and go get some books.

There's a great book called.

Hold Me Tight by Sue Johnson.

That's a great book about attachment and then start learning about your attachment talk about yours with her talk about What you're thinking, hey, I think I'm just learning something.

I'm wondering if that pain you're feeling might be attachment and if I'm in the spirit, I could say, can I teach you something?

I just learned about me and I or I got it.

I just got a prompting about you, as my wife.

Then I had a lot of compassion.

So I was just thinking, what's it like to be you?

Married to me and I realized, as I high sensitive, it's got to be really hard for me for you to be married to me because I always, Brakes, I always want to be away from people.

I will always want less and you always want more.

So I bet you feel like I suck the life out of you sometimes, and if I show that that from that Spirit, she'll start to move into spirit.

And when she moves into Spirit, then I try to teach her what I'm learning about her or invite her to come learn.

This with me, the power of these attachment issues is we can go talk about them together.

And as I helped get Give her what she never had when she was eight and she gives me what I never had when I was 12 or whatever.

We're actually healing each other.

And finally, instead of fighting about money or sex, what were realizing is, all your husband really wants, is to know, he's loved and all your wife really wants us to know that you're going to help around the house.

Because that she is a kid.

Didn't have help and mom made her.

The only girl in the family always had to do the work things.

Everything boys went to sports.

So just, I would just say, get into your essence, no matter what you do, and then don't move on the idea until you're moved with compassion. and until she sees that you have compassion towards her, Then you move.

If she doesn't see, you have compassion towards her, then you then you don't talk you, you can't do it.

You can't reach her.

No, and that's like, that's you'll see that in every major wisdom literature.

We don't move from our mind.

We real change has to take place from our Essence, Spirit to Spirit.

And most the time by the way, your spirit isn't deeply troubled by much, you know, in the world that the spirits really calm and okay, we'll get through this and figured.

It's a, is the deep ocean under all the ways in the wind track?

This is still still be still and know that I am.

Yeah, it's powerful man.

So good.

Brother, thank you, man.

Appreciate you so much.

This is you to do insightful and so helpful.

I'm proud of you guys in the, but, like, living you're doing it.

Which that's how we change one prompting at a time.

Now you'll go to you'll move to your next area.

You'll go to your next country, you'll change the next life there and it's cool.

You don't need to change 50, you just work on the one and then the next one will appear and we'll work on that one line upon line.

It's powerful proud of you.

Keep it up.

It's good stuff man.

Hey, how can I, how can people reach out to you?

Of course, I highly recommend your book.

Yeah.

So where can they connect with you and learn from you?

All they got to do is go to Matt townsend.com, it's three words, Matt, Town, send.com.

We've got some cool stuff.

I'm about to launch a coaching program where I'm going to teach an in-depth program, that kind of combines a lot of my academic work and my coaching on how to coach relationships, my goal is peace.

We're going to teach people how to be peacemakers.

So they go to Matt, townsend.com find Out about that, will be launching that in right before the end of the year of 2022.

And then we're going to also have some really cool coaching program.

So you can just do it for about 50 bucks a month, you can sit down and learn all of our skills, all of the classes and don't wait till your marriage is falling apart to sign up.

It in be prohibitive.

That's right, that's right.

I love you brother.

Thanks so much.

Love you too.

Thank you.

Take tell Rachel.

Hi.