Overcoming Fear Through Vulnerability ft. Matt Musgrave
Overcoming Fear Through Vulnerability ft. Matt Musgrave
In this episode of "Going Inside," I sit down with Matt Musgrave, a mental health counselor specializing in men's mental health and fatherhood experiences. Together, we delve into the complexities of masculinity, emotional resilience, and the power of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy in fostering personal growth and relational attunement.
Key Topics Discussed:
1. The Impact of Disconnecting from Personal Values:
- Matt and I explore how disconnecting from personal values can lead to a sense of disconnection from oneself and loved ones, emphasizing the importance of attunement and connection around a metaphorical campfire.
2. Embracing Vulnerability and Accepting Worthiness:
- Matt shares his personal journey of navigating fatherhood amidst challenging circumstances, highlighting the significance of embracing vulnerability and acknowledging inherent worthiness.
3. Shifting Perspectives on Change and Growth:
- The conversation shifts to how individuals, particularly men, approach change and growth, emphasizing the role of curiosity, compassion, and internal reflection over problem-solving and fixing.
4. The Paradox of Wanting Others to Change:
- Matt and I discuss the paradox of wanting others to change, highlighting the importance of turning inward and understanding one's own motivations and discomforts in the desire to change others.
5. The Potential of Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS):
- The episode concludes with an exploration of IFS as a powerful therapeutic modality for fostering peace, emotional resilience, and relational harmony, both individually and systemically.
For more information on Matt Musgrave visit: https://matthewmusgrave.com
Interview Transcript:
John: [00:00:00] This is Going Inside, healing traa from the inside out. Hosted by me, licensed traa therapist, John Clarke. Going Inside is a weekly podcast on a mission to help you heal from traa and connect with your authentic self. Tune in for enlightening guests, interviews, immersive solo deep dives, real life therapy sessions, and soothing guided meditations.
John: Follow me on socials, @JohnClarkeTherapy on Instagram. TikTok and YouTube and apply to work with me one on one at johnclarketherapy.com. Thanks for being here. Let's dive in today. I'm joined by Matt Musgrave. He's the founder and principal counselor of strong space counseling, a 100 percent online private practice specializing in working with men and fathers based in Canberra, Australia, six years.
In the criminal justice sector prior to transition to counseling, namely [00:01:00] working as a parole officer and men's behavior change group facilitator for male perpetrators of domestic and family violence. Matt's also a husband and father of two beautiful boys. Matt, thanks again for being here. How are you doing this morning?
Matt: Hey, John, that's, that's really it's always really interesting hearing those bios, you know. It's great. It's, it's exciting thanks for having me, man.
John: My pleasure. Yeah I have a really close friend of mine who is so a few years ago, I used to live in Paris for some reason, there's a.
John: Disproportionate amount of Australians in Paris. They don't know what it is, but I have like a lot of Australian buddies and one of them is coming to San Francisco next week. And we're also going to a warrior's game because another stereotype is a lot of. My Australian buddies really love basketball.
John: So that must be a thing to some, some folks [00:02:00] too.
Matt: Well, news to me, cause I'm about, I'm a basketball player. I'm a basketball fan and it's not that popular here. It may be a little bit more popular. Yeah. But not a, not a thing, not, not like rugby, not like AFL, not like you know, a lot of other sports. Yeah.
John: Well, I'm, I'm also , I'm a massive UFC fan, ultimate fighting championships, you know, mixed martial arts. So yeah, some Australian fighters, some fighters from New Zealand that I follow, but yeah, that's awesome.
Matt: Yeah. We're doing, we're doing some pretty cool things. I've here. Yeah. I would say so.
John: I'm really interested in just kind of how you got here, you know, even.
John: You know jping off of that introduction and even where you came from professionally before becoming a counselor is super interesting. So maybe you can fill us in a little bit more there, and then we're going to explore topics today around IFS masculinity, legacy burdens. We'll see where it takes us.
Matt: Yeah [00:03:00] gosh, it's the old origin story. It is kind of interesting for me. So I, I sort of born and raised in rural and regional New South Wales over here so the state of Sydney about eight hours north of Sydney in the country, my parents still live out there and live in the bush and, and a kind of your quintessential Aussie kind of farming lifestyle.
Matt: , so I grew up on farms, I grew up on properties, I grew up, you know, quite a small town six, seven thousand people which kind of, I suppose, in a way, fostered and facilitated a very traditional view of the world, a very sort of small town, I'm sure it's, you know, a pretty common story in America as well, where there's a lot of in the U.
Matt: S. where the My understanding, at least my, my, my Australian , lens that I view America is that there are a lot of small regional sort of [00:04:00] country culture cultures there as well. So I, I kind of filtered a lot of my life through that lens of what would I do in a small town and, you know, what would be expected of me, you know, on the farm and, you know, and, .
Matt: There was, you know, it was, it was not a very expansive. It was not a very well, I'm not gonna say not well educated, but we, we all had our own way of doing things, basically I think that really stirred a lot of curiosity for me. I, my parents talk about me being an incredibly curious, kid where I would be, I'd be the, I'd be the 4, 5, 6 year old who would go up and sit next to a parent at a birthday party instead of playing with all of the other kids and say, so tell me Bernadette, you know, how's your life going?
Matt: What's going on in life for you as this young kid? And that's kind of just progressed throughout my life. I, I spent 6 years at an all boys boarding school and so again, [00:05:00] like a lot of my a lot of my Beliefs and a lot of my goals and a lot of my life is filtered through this small town, small country town and then all boys born in school and then proceeded to join the army for a couple of years here in Australia and then and sort of the whole way through that period I was kind of really grappling with who I was and where I fit into the world and I had a Big ideas, but a very small community.
Matt: , everywhere else going. So I think I spent a lot of time basically just jping from one thing to the next. Just trying to experience, trying to explore, trying to question, trying to kind of navigate these really big existential, I suppose, questions. I seemed like I was the only one. Asking them, you know, at least in my circles, everyone else in my life [00:06:00] felt pretty content.
Matt: So I just jped from job to job. I left the army. I I started studying my bachelor's degree in psychology and criminology finished that up super quickly. It only took me about two years to get through that degree and jped straight into probation parole work in the community because it was what was offered to me at the time.
Matt: , loved the, loved the work, loved the nature of working in prisons and helping, helping people in the community. And that really kind of was where things clicked that I wanted to work with. People that I wanted to sort of help and support people on a one on one basis. I was sort of case managing at the time.
Matt: So just organizing, getting started, getting accommodation, getting you know transportation, all these sort of any ways that I could kind of [00:07:00] help people to kind of give them the best opportunity or the best foundation to not continue committing crimes, basically And so that led me to starting to study my post grad in, in counseling.
Matt: , I said, yep, that's what I want to do. And the month that I started my degree, my wife got pregnant and my best mate died. The, that, that very same month that I started and I started a new job as well in the men's behavior change work. So I had these four big, huge life changes that all kind of happened all at once.
Matt: So the counseling kind of got parked a little bit and I just put my head down and prioritized on the family and the baby coming and the new job and, you know, grieving my mate, and then it wasn't until about the end of that same year, I sort of thought, no, counseling is definitely where I want to go.
Matt: This is my interest. This is my passion. I loved the men's behavior change [00:08:00] work. I love perpetrator work, but it still didn't feel I didn't feel connected or close enough. I've realized over time that probation parole is still very disconnected. It's very, you know, I, I hold that power. I'm, I'm enacting that those parole conditions, you know, making sure that you are with the stick, right?
Matt: If you don't do it, then I'll send you back in front of the board and you will have to, you know, convince them. So it's kind of a lot of finding out , you know, what people are doing is a lot of there's not a lot of certainty. No one's there by choice, by and large and then shifting into men's behavior changes about half and half 50 50, but it was still very much an organizational professional divide there where I did my, I was doing my job and you were here to.
Matt: to change kind of thing so coming into private practice, starting up my own business a couple of years ago two years ago now, it'll be two years next [00:09:00] month was the natural next step for me. And it's been incredible. It's been the best decision I've ever made.
John: Great. Yeah. Thank you for that.
John: That story gives a lot of color as to how you got here and a bit about, you know, just really what it means for you to be a therapist I have two, . Really broad questions kind of on purpose, and one is in your experience, especially bridging the gap between criminal justice system and therapy is nber one.
John: Why do you think people do bad things or hurt people? Nber two. How do you see change? How do people change and grow?
John: I'll do a third, which is how have your thoughts and views on that change and evolved as you've grown into a therapist and even with the [00:10:00] IFS piece that we're
Matt: excited about? Well, I think, I think the, all of those questions Kind of really embody a lot of what draws me to IFS and what I've always naturally felt in all of my roles.
Matt: So there's a couple of pieces here for me. There's obviously the personal piece where , I've got a lot of my own history. I've got a lot of my own traa. I've got a lot of my own complex, nuanced, internal experience of man and masculinity and risk taking and relationships and safety that obviously inform a lot about kind of what I do and, and the, as you were asking those questions, one of the first things that came to my mind was I've always had it.
Matt: That [00:11:00] unconditional positive regard that, that I've always felt and looked and seen and had a sense that even when a bully was bullying at school, even when, you know a parent wasn't being particularly nice or, or, you know, it was doing something that felt a bit icky. I always got had a sense internally.
Matt: That there was going to be a reason for it. This is like curiosity. I was referring to this. If you just, if I, if I just figured it out, you know, then I'd be able to somehow help and support. And so a lot of that comes from me. That's, that's a lot of my people pleasing parts. That's a lot of my you know, fear of confrontation and conflict and, and doesn't necessarily equate to the reality of the situation.
Matt: And that's what a lot of my work's been. Right? Is taking a step back and not necessarily or inherently trying to help and change the person in front of me, right? Because that's mine and that's my work to do. [00:12:00] , that's not actually going to be helpful in the achievement of that relationship of what this other person needs.
Matt: So there's the first piece is that really personal piece. I've got to, I've got to make sure that I'm doing a lot of my own internal work and focusing and redirecting a lot of, My attention away from the lenses that my parts want me to filter, you know, everything through in terms of why do people hurt people?
Matt: You know, why do people commit crimes? Why do people exhibit any social behavior? Why are people maybe manipulative or coercive or violent or One of one of the words that I loved in my training when I was initially moving into men's behavior changes that they would often interchange the word violence with violate.
Matt: So it was not, it's not necessarily about the behavior or the action, but, you know specifically. [00:13:00] So, for someone who throws a plate and smashes a plate against the wall That may not be a necessarily violent act to some people, but to other people, they might experience that as a violation, you know, to their safety and their emotional experience.
Matt: And so it's a very sort of hurt is a very subjective. piece. That's not something a lot of people want to grapple with. People want to really hold, I found, their own intention, but I didn't mean it. I, I, you know, that wasn't my intention to hurt you even when, you know, you're working with the pointy end of these people who are using physical violence or sexual violence or you know, coercive control, I'll say, but that's not my intent.
Matt: Ifs internal family systems would posit that all of [00:14:00] those behaviors are protective to the individual, right? If we look back as to why someone might steal a car or why someone might you know assault another person that if we. If we get curious enough and we are open enough and we're able to hold our own, maybe scared parts or fearful parts or justice oriented parts or parts that really want to see them take accountability or be punished, then, then those are the parts that are really going to get in the way of us really understanding and helping that client or that individual.
Matt: To understand what that behavior was doing for them. And so, and so if you were to accept the IFS premise that all [00:15:00] parts are good parts and that all parts are protective and have a positive intent, then the process of figuring out How to help someone through that how to move them into a place of change isn't to tell them why what they're doing is wrong or how it might impact another person because already we know there's not another sentence there.
Matt: There's not a. Empathy, but if they had that capacity, then we probably wouldn't be in this position in the first place, or we'd be having a different conversation, but especially for those individuals who sit really strongly in defensiveness, justification, minimization, all of those really, really crunchy.
Matt: Kind of protective parts that really don't want to move or be shifted at all. If we can connect with them and link with them and, and really aim to understand what it is they were doing for the system, I've never met a part that doesn't make sense to that person in that [00:16:00] moment with that experience.
Matt: And that can really go a long way in them feeling safe enough to actually start to. Shift a little bit and I do want to also caveat and saying there's a lot of clients that I work with that. Are going to take a long time, you know, to feel that safety, you know, maybe in some cases, years, you know, of work and a lot of people who don't, who don't want to change or don't have that safety in their lives, they're not willing to.
Matt: , they usually the system's usually not willing to persevere and be patient enough long term to continue doing that work. So it's a really hard catch 22, right? Where we want to go gentle and soft and be safe, but also their behavior is harmful and hurtful and, you know, we want it to change quickly and sooner rather than later.
Matt: So it's a very fine balanced. I don't have the answer to it, but, You know, it's really, [00:17:00] that's really what I'm looking at when I'm working with some of, especially the men that I work with. Yeah, that's wonderful.
John: Do you think? Oh, yeah, it does. And I've got more questions loaded up like any therapy, curious therapist.
John: would also just say, you know interestingly part of my Rese is working in juvenile justice and juvenile probation here in San Francisco. And so, yeah, first of all, in our case, like we're really working in the system and thinking about how a system has already kind of failed a kid here, right?
John: Or a teenager. And they haven't had safety at home or in the neighborhood they live in. And then why are we surprised when they are aggressive at school? Or, you know, someone looks at them the wrong way and they punched him in the face. It's like, why are we surprised by that? , when that response has been very adaptive, right?
John: And modeled [00:18:00] for their whole life yeah, you
Matt: know, it's funny though, even reinforced, like they might actually receive love and affection and care from people around them for doing that same behavior. So,
John: well, even this idea of like. What does it mean to be a man? , is a question that comes to mind for me of like, to your point of it being reinforced, like, what is masculinity or is that the manly thing to do?
John: , my own ideas about masculinity have been, you know, all over the map throughout my life and my examples of, of men that I want to emulate you know, is, is a pretty, is a short list in a way, but the, in, in that setting, you know, a lot of our work was about trying to. Control behaviors. Right. And when I was working with these, these teenagers and sitting with them as a social worker, with their probation officer, it's like, [00:19:00] how do I get this kid to not beat anyone up for one week?
John: Like, let's just get one week. Right. And I remember one day we walked out of the probation office and we were Literally in front of the building, there's police officers everywhere. And one of my clients saw another client and for some reason they both took issue that the fact, by the fact that I was the social worker for both of them and they got into a fistfight about it, so it's like then we reset the clock and right.
John: It's like, okay, well, we didn't make it one hour without fighting. But this paradigm shift with IFS in going from how do we control the behavior or people here? Like a term is anger management, right? And people are like, I've been assigned anger management by the court. So I'm here to get. your help managing my anger, controlling my anger, controlling my drinking, right?
John: Whatever it is. And IFS just is such a radical shift in inviting forward the part that wants to drink the part [00:20:00] that's holds the anger and getting curious about it and asking it questions. Can we get it to get to know it? Right. It's just such a radical shift as to how does change take place, you know?
Matt: Yeah. I, I often say with, with a lot of my men that we're the, the reframing that we can do here is moving away from self control and towards self care, right? It's not that self control is inherently a bad thing. It's obviously going to be very heavy, heavily managerially led which is great because we know that those managerial parts are protective.
Matt: They do have positive intent. So if we can hold care for those managers, if we can move towards a model where we are. Becoming aware of and holding compassion for even some of those really, [00:21:00] , unhelpful , unreliable , even hurtful to ourselves. Then, then we have a best opportunity again to move towards a place where we can be more effective.
Matt: Right? So I, I will often, I will often, at least in the initial sessions, you know, when, you know, I'm working with clients and they may not know about IFS or they don't know about this language and. You know the culture of masculinity here in Australia is very much , as I imagine it is across most Western countries, maybe, maybe the world, I'm, I'm, I'm not certain, but.
Matt: It's certainly here is very fearful of vulnerability, fearful of emotional expression, fearful of genuine, authentic relationships to be for [00:22:00] men here in Australia, for the men that I work with to be seen is to be unsafe, right? And every time that Every time that the men that I've worked with have attempted to, and by and large, their attempts to be seen have not been particularly healthy or, you know , maybe they might've been aggressive or they might've been confusing or they might not have had the language or they might've shut it down themselves.
Matt: So men don't do this well. We're not saying that men are doing this really perfectly well and they're communicating really effectively, but, and people are rejecting them. Not at all Oftentimes, oftentimes the men will put themselves out there in really unhelpful, unhealthy, problematic ways, and then that will just continue the cycle of reinforcing that it's unsafe for them to express, it's unsafe for them to to be authentic.
Matt: And so we choose as men, we choose [00:23:00] compliance, social social acceptance, right, in these strict, rigid ideals. Right around, you know what Mark Green calls the man box, you know, the, the, we, we fit ourselves in, we, we, we, you know, we, we, we, we become malleable in our personalities to kind of to avoid this is the fear component void being targeted, avoid it.
Matt: , being ridiculed, avoid being hurt socially, right? And so we fit ourselves into that, into that box. I mean, out of that box, most people, most, a lot of men are slapped back down into it. And that is policed predominantly by other men who also don't know how to get out of that box. Right? So. Really what we're, you know, what we're aiming for and what we're working towards in a lot of this in particular, you know, when you're working in criminal justice, you're really working at the pointy end, you're working [00:24:00] with you know, violent, abusive, you know, pretty intense behaviors, antisocial, as it's labeled, that , Yeah.
Matt: tends to have, as you mentioned, a lot more systemic, a lot more intergenerational challenges than your typical everyday Aussie who's coming in of their own choice and their own volition and paying their own money because they know that they want a better relationship or they could be a better dad.
Matt: Or there are there are some elements in their life, which is predominantly pretty good that they want to. Better, right? Yeah and so what we're really looking for is in the first instance, and this is what IFS does so beautifully and what I think the power of IFS really is when working with men is creating that container of safety to give men the relational attunement and the experience of what it's like to be able to say and [00:25:00] be and do whatever it is.
Matt: That they want that authentic, especially even if it's the only space in their lives where they get to do that, that will have a relational impact on the way that they view, you know, their, their, their relationship with their partners or with their kids, with their boss. Right. And that will automatically and naturally have the flow on effect and the outcome of.
Matt: , safe expression and, you know and, and then you can start to work on the backend. So I often say, let's not get the cart, let's not put the cart before the horse here. We've gotta do, we've gotta do this in order, right? The logical, you know , the, the logical problem solving work is important. It's just gotta come after we do the emotional safety.
Matt: and relationship building or like getting to know yourself, you need the data, you need the emotions, you need the feelings, you need to be able to understand what's going on internally so that we can know what [00:26:00] skills and problems to solve and how best to do that in a way that feels right to you.
Matt: And so, yeah, does that make sense?
John: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think in the stereotypical ideals of a modern man. It's one that doesn't show emotion, right? Or shows great poise, especially in times of distress or loss or whatever it is. And so not showing it means a great deal of suppression is probably happening right in filtering.
John: And if I have scared parts, it's putting those parts even further in the corner because dear God, I don't want anyone to see them. Or in my case, when I was a kid, you know, I was always labeled Sensitive or too sensitive even as an adult, I've been labeled too sensitive, right, which is I don't know, such a toxic term, right?
John: And it's like, ironically, my sensitivity is the exact thing I need to be a good [00:27:00] therapist and what makes me a good therapist. But yes. My those feelings and vulnerabilities ashamed out of me, you know, exactly.
Matt: Well, you, you, you talk about like, you're using language here around being poised, you know, filtering you know being sort of good in a crisis.
Matt: It's really drawing us back to that same word that we were talking about earlier, which is this idea of self control. Right? Yeah. That we, that men have to always and constantly be in control. We cannot be vulnerable. We cannot be expressive. We cannot open ourselves up to weakness. But where does that narrative, that vulnerability equals weakness come from?
Matt: Right? That, that, that there is a history that each individual man will share with us around their experience of having that. Policed into him maybe not, maybe not specifically, they might not have like a bullying moment that they might not have a [00:28:00] parent who, you know, you know, literally told them you can't be vulnerable.
Matt: You can't, you know, have emotions, but there will be a series of small interactions. That cause that whether it's in usually in childhood from a caregiver, but not always I'm working, you know, working with some clients at the moment who have pretty good you know, secure attachments with parent figures, but had really, really debilitating extremely really debilitating bullying.
Matt: in, in, in high school, early high school, which has caused them significant social anxiety and and the challenges, interactions with, you know, workplaces and those sorts of things that even though they had the safety of secure attachment at home, the insecure attachment figures and the unsafety in school environments was enough to kind of generate and create these internalized kind of beliefs around how we [00:29:00] should show up and what people are expecting of us.
Matt: And what's going to happen if I, you know, if I am more vulnerable or if I don't comply, or if I don't fit myself back into that box so I can maybe be myself at home, but I can't be myself here. So we're already, you know detaching and dissociating and, and, and ripping apart and tearing apart in order to remain safe in different situations and contexts.
Matt: And that's, that's a really challenging and, and exhausting space to have to maintain every day. And I think that's where we're seeing a lot of relationship issues for men. Men are, men are going into the world, you know, putting on that mask, fitting themselves into that box. And then they do have this safe container at home, maybe with their partner who knows them and who trusts them and, you know, is, is trying to navigate that relationship with them.
Matt: And they end up. Kind of copying a lot of the, the, the [00:30:00] flow on effects of that traa and that disconnection and, and those sorts of things, which is usually, usually not what Men want and that's usually why men are coming to counseling to therapy individually because they got their own stuff to work on and it is by and large playing out on their partners at home,
John: you know, you know, in my case I, I never once saw my dad cry and so, you know, he didn't have to say anything.
John: About that for me to inherit that right example and to internalize that and to internalize that perhaps something bad would happen if I did cry or if I do cry even, even today the, another piece, you know, we, we had mentioned this idea of legacy burdens and IFS and things I just wrote it down are inherited and, and in [00:31:00] doing my own IFS work with my parts with.
John: My trainer Tammy, Tammy Sullenberger we, we came across a legacy burden around really, we were working on why I work too much or in periods of my life. I have, I can work too much and guess what? Legacy burden around my dad who worked too much and where did he inherit that from his dad who worked too much?
John: And so Yeah, we actually had a big moment in this session in a big unburdening where both my dad and my grandfather were there with me or part of me around a campfire. And getting releasing that burden together, that burden of work too much or that burden of being a a man means working a lot or working all the ton and yes.
John: That has made big shifts in me and I've even had parts that are scared now. Like, what if I get lazy now that that's been unburdened? Right cause that helped me a lot when I started [00:32:00] my , business years ago on coaching teaching therapists about business I had a part that was driving the bus that whole time and leading me to.
John: Overwork and overwork and overwork. Right. And on one hand, that got me really far because it, that part built a business for me. And so there's also a fear around, like, what if I can't find that? Or, you know, some clients will say like, well, what if I lose my edge? Right. If that edge is coming from a wounded part, which it was for me.
John: , so. I'll pass it back to you. Of course, I got more thoughts, but yeah,
Matt: no, I mean, I just want to, I just want to acknowledge the the beauty of that example. Right. I think, I think work. Is really representational and symbolic of those legacy burdens that men experience that their value is dependent on what they can do and what they can provide and what they can create and what they can sort of offer to society and to [00:33:00] their family.
Matt: Right. And yet that exact that exact vessel of of, of achieving a sense of value and a sense of worthiness. Comes from disconnection. We're disconnecting from what we're trying to provide value. We're disconnecting from our family. Maybe we're going to work a lot in order to provide the value, but, but really what your sort of example and what your sort of beautiful
Matt: example there around the unburdening is that we're sitting around a campfire with the people. That we wanted to be connected with the whole time. That is where the value lies. It's not in our ability to be able to provide or to build the business or to, you know, to go to work a lot, make lots of money.
Matt: It's the beacon. What we really wanted, what we really desired, what we, what everyone is seeking is that close attunement and connection [00:34:00] and the value for us to have our inherent value and worthiness to be acknowledged and seen at all times. Yeah. And this, this to me I had a very similar experience.
Matt: So starting my business two years ago after the birth of my second son he had a lot of health issues and he wasn't sleeping. My wife and sort of diagnosed with postnatal depression it was a, it was a really traatic ordeal. And I had the, I took four months of paternity leave, which was amazing.
Matt: , very, very, very blessed. Like I took seven months with my first son, four months with, with my second and at that point, it was just after I graduated. So I graduated my counseling post grad degree in the December of 2021. And he was born in January of 2022. And so I had that four months [00:35:00] off and I had to make this decision about whether or not I was going to go back to men's behavior change.
Matt: Right, which was going to be, which were in groups until 9, 10 o'clock at night, and you know, I was going to be away, and we're having this terrible, terrible time that I had to really, so I die, I just said, no, I'm, I'm going to leave that job, and I'm going to dive headfirst into starting a business 2 months, 3 months after I finished my degree.
Matt: Well, you know, what was I thinking? . I had a lot of grappling there as well around what the purpose of that business was, was it to try to satiate me? Was it to try to to distract me from the intensity of what I was experiencing at home? And a lot of the work that I, I was doing with my therapist at the time was really connecting and taking care of those parts that were, that was scared and that were fearful that I was doing the business for all the wrong reasons because of these narratives that we know.
Matt: You know, and I do have really strong independent parts, you know, growing up on a farm, you know, basically, you know, on my own, I, you know, [00:36:00] I was isolated. I, my parents worked like 16 hour days. I'm most comfortable when I'm alone. Yeah. Right. So to have a wife and have 2 kids who need me all of the time is really overwhelming for my system.
Matt: It's, you know and so for me, there is, there was work to be done. And to the, to the guys who are worried about having, you know, losing their edge, I would say that is a totally valid fear, right? Yeah. That that edge is kind of, because what the fear is, is that if we lose our edge, we lose our value and worth.
Matt: So we're actually, we're not worried about losing our edge because if we were to say to that same part, what happens if you lost your edge and you were still valued and you were still, you know, worthy, would you? Do that. Of course they would. Right. Because that, that's what it's there for. The other alternative is, is that you sharpen your edge by doing this, right?
Matt: You become clearer, you become [00:37:00] calmer, you become more composed. It's not about, you're not becoming more controlled. You're not rigidly controlling yourself. You're allowing yourself to relax and breathe and flexibly adapt as a result of that. I think I've been able to grow my business. Even more successfully, not because I'm doing it from a place of worth, but because to try to gain worth, but because I know I already have it huge, right?
Matt: So, yeah, people are drawn guys see it. They, they notice that they go. I don't know what it is about Matt. I don't understand what that. He's grappling with it. He's real. He's, you know, he's in the weeds. He's this high and mighty professional who's going to tell me what to do and give me, you know you know, these five homework exercises and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Matt: Like he's, there's something there. And that's the feedback I get over and over again, is that the more real, you know, I am, the better [00:38:00] my clients seem to be doing. Yep.
John: Well, paradoxically, you know, when we're not led by a part, and we're in fact self led, which is really the. The goal of IFS, right, is we have an openness creativity all the, you know, the, the eight C's of self that come through and take the wheel.
John: And paradoxically you can go even further. And you know, I, I used to say like with one of my clients who's, who's very successful in his business. Like one day I was like, what, what's your, what's, where does your drive come from? And he was like, without missing a beat, is like to see the other guys fail.
John: Right. And there's this almost vindictive part, right? This part had driven him very, very far for very, very long. And there was a lot of fear around. What if I don't have this part? Right. So at the time, and before this was before I knew IFS, it was like, all right, so there's this kind of dirty fuel, right?
John: And you can run off this dirty fuel certain amount of time and hot all the time, [00:39:00] even like your nervous system is running hot because you're running your business from a chip with the chip on your shoulder, right? , Versus this idea of clean fuel, right? Which is like, I have a vision for my future and doing, and now his business is about doing good for the world.
John: And he has this kind of what successes and it's all really shifted, right. And thinking about running your business from a more self led place. It's been. Transformational, but a lot of what gets people to the dance, so to speak, is a part, right? And again, in my case, it was a part that kind of got me to being an entrepreneur and accomplishing a lot.
John: But I also looking back on that period of my life, I at the time had a lot to prove and I had a chip on my shoulder, right? And this better than more than less than You know, element which time I would have called ego, right? , you know, but that, that piece and you can feel it too. And we can feel it in our clients, right?
John: When there there's a part that's leading the [00:40:00] dance, or in my case, I live and work in Silicon Valley, right? One of the most competitive places in the world. So people come here to be a big shot, right? And to be the next. Big thing or the guy, right? , and there's also a lot of devastation when it doesn't work out that way or when their startup fails and their identity is so profoundly attached to it or attached to being rich or being revered, right?
John: That when that doesn't happen, their world comes crashing down and you see people in the highest highs and then consequently, the lowest of lows,
Matt: right? Exactly. And, and yeah. Whenever, whenever I hear my clients, whenever my clients are talking about, or whenever I'm working with a guy who's saying like, this is what I need, this is what I need.
Matt: I need to get to this point. Like, here's the goal. Here's the agenda. Here's the intention. Like, teach me the skills, teach me, you know, give me the exercises, you know give me the techniques, fix me, solve me, you know, because I got to get, I got to get here. Yeah. [00:41:00] And that's, that's an everyday conversation.
Matt: I've got to admit, that's not a, it's not an infrequent thing it's really like highlighting immediately to me what the fear is, right. It's not the drive towards the end goal, right. You know that we start with, or that I would start with, it's the, what happens if you don't achieve that. Totally. Where is this coming from?
Matt: Right? Yeah. What does it mean to you? What meaning are we going to make here? If, if you don't achieve this strict rigid agenda, let's say, let's say it's going to take a year for you to stop getting so angry at home. Let's just say, hypothetically, it's going to take you 12 months. You're telling me you need to be fixed it like ASAP, right?
Matt: What does it mean if you're not? What does it mean if this is actually [00:42:00] going to take time, right? How are you going to handle that? Is that going to feel good to you? Is that going to, you know, what would that mean about who you are? If you're not able to achieve it, and so we can start working backwards into some of those places of the motivating fears, you know, which is obviously some of the core components of of the IFS process, right?
Matt: And I would never do that. So explicitly, but, you know, as I'm as I'm sort of thinking about people listening to this. Is one of the one of the ways that I like to think about and as I process my parts and as I, as I develop my own reflective practice and my own, my own little cocktail of what helps for me, right?
Matt: One of the main ones for me is very much as, as I noticed myself looking forward, I always ask myself what's. Looking back, [00:43:00] I offer myself space and time for all of my parts to be able to push forward and project intention and hope and share with me their, their roles and what they're trying to achieve, but also why they're trying to achieve it and moving back.
Matt: So it's not one or the other, not only looking backwards to heal all of my traa and my pain and all those things, because those parts of some wonderful values and skills and resources that I want to include. I need in my life, right? , totally. But I don't, yeah, I want to harmonize that as best I can.
Matt: I think about it with my four year old son, right? I kind of go, oh, I want to teach him, you know, I want to teach him to not bite his brother, right? Probably my two year old son to my four year old. That's kind of a four year old. I want to teach him not to bite and at the same time, I'm going to expect that he will.
Matt: Right. I'm not just going to sit in that forward thinking moving forward agenda. I'm going to say, okay, and how [00:44:00] do I take care of myself if. He does buy it because he's going to buy it because he's four and it's going to take him a lot of time. Right. So I need patience. I need perseverance. I need playfulness.
Matt: I need perspective. Right. I think those, you know, those additional five P's, you know, of self energy, I think can be, you know, crucially important, you know, in our parenting. Yeah. Yeah. Huge parenting. Yeah. Like that, but also I think all relationships, right? I think being able to have patience and playfulness and perspective for ourselves or for our partners is going to be critically important to not necessarily only the eight C's.
Matt: Yeah. Right. Which are very helpful. Yeah. But also like, what's life without joy? What's life without, you know perspective? What's a relationship without being able to see the other person's point of view, even if we, [00:45:00] fundamentally disagree with that. Yeah. Right. I think, I think there's capacity for emotional resilience and deep relational attunement, which, which is what brings us contentment and joy and, and and
Matt: love. Which is what we're seeking, that security, right? That being seen. We cannot do that unless we're also doing that for others. So all of these things, it's so easy to say out loud and so hard to do in practice and reality, of course. But, you know, that's the beauty of the IFS model is that we have language, we have 8Cs, we have 5Ps, we have, you know, 11 steps of unburdening.
Matt: We have the success of the, you know, processing. We don't have to do it in those orders. We don't have to follow them. We don't have the, you know, [00:46:00] , create skills or anything around them, but we just know that the structure, we know that the language is there and we can hold that as as the lens and filter that we work through.
Matt: Totally. Well,
John: yeah. And with a few minutes left here, you know, I'm I'm looping back to the initial kind of question that I threw at you on like, how do people change and the thought that I have and I, that I have all the time is, and I'll use this example with my clients is as they're getting to know their parts and working with their parts.
John: And oftentimes. Having judgment toward their parts or wishing it would go away or stop drinking or stop getting angry or whatever, right? Thinking about if you have a person in your life and let's just say it's a friend and you want to help them change or Grow right or heal really how would you help them do that?
John: Right? Would you strong arm them? Would you shame them? Would you belittle them? Right? Would you ride them until they get their [00:47:00] act together, right? So even if you're trying to help them go to the gym or right or whatever it might be Most people know the answer to that, right? They're like, no. How would they do it?
John: And the answer is pretty much by offering love in some form or fashion or some, you know, definition of that word, right? Or at least starting with curiosity toward, hey, how did you end up here? How did you end up drinking so much? What does it, what does it do for you? What are the fears you hold around?
John: What if, what if you didn't drink or whatever it might be? , and then again, paradoxically. People and therefore parts change and grow and are willing to let go of the thing they're so fearfully holding on to and gripping of if I didn't drink, I'd feel shame. And if I felt shame, I would feel so bad that I want to kill myself, right?
John: So drinking is better option for now. Oh, got it. That makes sense. Tell me more about that. Tell me how you, you know, came to be or came to that conclusion or took on, right? [00:48:00] This, this, this thing.
Matt: Well. Well, I mean, like, even in that example, like, it is a better option. It's a better option. It is a protective option.
Matt: It is maintaining the element of safety. It doesn't take away the part that might want that pain to end and in a really abrupt way and, . Intense way, but, but the drinking is doing the protective role of keeping that at bay. So it always makes sense back to that point around the thing that was coming up for me.
Matt: And I'd be curious to get your thoughts in a very short period. I'm sure. But I often wonder that for us as counselors, mental health professionals, therapists we asse people know that that's how they have to help their friends and that's because that's how we're trained. That's the lens we've used because we obviously have some weird, perverse, you know, [00:49:00] intensity to study these things, right?
Matt: In great detail, in great depth. . But in my experience, when I'm working with my clients and I do, you know, hold that curiosity around what they would do or how, what they would say or what they would tell a friend, inevitably, I do notice, at least for men, that it is more of a problem solving, it is more of a fixing, it is more of like a, Oh, you know you know, set an alarm at this time and set three if you need to and go to the gym, right?
Matt: And they'll, and they'll start to do that like that real problem solving solutions oriented thinking without doing a lot of that curiosity work without doing a lot of that openness or love or compassion. And it's not meant to be shaming. The intention is not there to shame or control the other person.
Matt: They're just projecting the ways in which they think they would manage that because they [00:50:00] maybe are feeling uncomfortable or, you know, they don't know. How to, and, and the advice that I often give is that if you feel compelled to change another person, then that is the trailhead for you to do the U turn and come home to yourself and figure out what's going on for you in that moment.
Matt: It's not to say that you're not going to help, it's not going to say that you shouldn't problem solve or help that person come up with solutions. But it is flagging that there is something going on inside you. All right. That might feel uncomfortable or responsible, or that might have been made accountable for things that were not yours to hold or, you know, that were expected to do these kinds of roles and, and that is some work.
Matt: You know, that you can do for yourself, that will actually help you help your friends, help your partner, help others, because it gives us the space to be curious, to be compassionate, to not meet them with shame, right? To not meet them with control. [00:51:00] Yeah.
John: Well, I mean, if the entire world could hear that message and practice doing it more often, the world would be A different place and we would have more peace, right?
John: , right. And just that sense of like, I wish someone were different, right? And turning, you know, going inside that invitation there. And I think this is also why, you know, IFS has such big goals and vision around bringing IFS to all sorts of people, even bringing it to leaders and politicians and , yeah, people with big stages and whatnot, because it's such a powerful path to, Yeah.
John: Peace. Really on a, on a, like a therapy scale, we often see it with our clients and their romantic partners. Right? Like if only my partner were this, then I'd be happier. Right. Or we wouldn't fight as much. I just need them to be different. Right. So we see that so much. Right. And that, that just wishing that person.
John: Was different so that I could stop suffering, right?
Matt: Yeah, [00:52:00] exactly. Exactly. It's like, it's I think it's the parole calls you know, the couples therapy drop off center, you know, and just drop a partner off and, you know, can you fix them for me, please? Because, you know, I don't do couples work. I've only ever done couples adjacent to, so I'll be, I'll be working individually with the man while they're doing couples work.
Matt: , but one, and so for me. You know, I, I'm always very curious, but also a little scared about how to navigate that. I do hold a fear around how to sit in that dynamic between having two people opposite me and not just one that's definitely for me down the track. I'm, I'm excited to do it. And I don't think I will end up.
Matt: going in that path, but I just get so much value working with men alongside the couple's work where they're doing their couple's work and they're coming back to me and they're bringing their stuff that came up for them and doing their work, which is, which is really beautiful. But to your point around, like, I do think with the IFS kind [00:53:00] of community that You know, there, there is, there does seem to be and this is probably my lack of, research or, or lack of kind of, understanding, but those are, there are structural systemic agendas that seem to.
Matt: , play out in all of these spaces, right? Where, you know, we want to bring this to the community. There's the agenda. We want to bring this to the community. It's, it's like a top level version of what we're asking, you know, we're asking our friends to you know, to look at themselves before they help others.
Matt: It's like, as a community, I think we need to Do we need to bring it to anyone? Do we really need to push this? Do we really need, you know, to, you know, take it to higher levels and industry leaders and those sorts of things, even if we know it would benefit them, even if we know it [00:54:00] would be kind of good.
Matt: So I'm, I'm, I'm sitting with that. I'm just sitting with like the ways in which agendas and intention can work individually on a internal system, but also. You know how, how are we thinking systemically about trying to change, trying to fix, trying to, you know, project, trying to, you know, save the world, which I think again, is going to be important to be a part of that conversation.
Matt: But, you know, that that's, that's something that I'm going to sort of take away from today and think about that. I don't know how that lands for you,
John: but yeah, we're going to have to our next podcast episode. We can start there, give ourselves 50 minutes to unpack. I think we're just scratching the surface here.
John: , time has flown by Matt. I can't thank you enough for, for doing this and, you know, taking the chance to spend this time with me, given that it's it's a new show, but, [00:55:00] , I think gonna. Going to going to help a lot of people or at least help them get curious and in this case, a lot of our talk around men and masculinity, I think is really exciting to put this type of content out there for people just as an invitation.
John: That being said, Matt, how can people learn more about you? What are you offering right now and how can they get in touch?
Matt: Yeah, I hate this question the most so I'm, I'm on, I'm on socials you can find you can find me @MatthewMusgrave_ on Instagram yeah, Matthew Musgrave on, on Facebook.
Matt: There's a, you know, there's a page there as well LinkedIn is another one that I'm kind of quite active on so I'm, I'm, I'm over there. Putting that content there around men's mental health, you know, fathers experiences, you know skills, value tactics, anything I can kind of offer over there, but I've really only just started doing that again this year the last couple of months.
Matt: So website as [00:56:00] well you can jump onto www.matthewmusgrave.com and that can kind of lead you to the different areas. I do currently only work with men here in Australia and I'm fully booked with the wait list, but I've brought a couple of new guys onto the team this year and, you know, getting them sort of set up and starting to do some basic IFS training obviously.
Matt: Significant wait list fo the formal trainings. so, you know, not holding our breath on that but really just inviting them. So, so they're, they're, you know, if you are a man or, you know, a man who, you know, likes the sound of this, you know, obviously , there's going to be plenty of people in the US who facilitate that and engage in that and maybe, you know, if there are people over there with specific skills in and around working with men and fathers, maybe I'd love to connect.
Matt: I've [00:57:00] got guys from the U. S. asking me and I just can't work with them under insurance reasons. And the Americans, your system, not not allowed anywhere in the world. You guys. yeah, but they're going to be the best places. Yeah. Yep.
John: Great. We'll put all the links to that in the description. Of course and, .
John: Yeah, man. I just, I just can't thank you enough for being here and I really think we should do it again. So thank you again. And, yeah, really appreciate it. Yeah, we could,
Matt: we could just talk about this stuff all day. Couldn't we? Yeah. Awesome, man. Thanks again. All right. Cheers.
John: Thanks for listening to another episode of Going Inside.
John: If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching and share your favorite episode with a friend. You can follow me on Instagram, @JohnClarkeTherapy. And apply to work with me one on one at JohnClarkeTherapy.com. See you next time.
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