Navigating Relationships with Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy

Thomas Westenholz (00:30.155)

I felt it’s really great to kind of expand it into a more conversational podcast. And also Michael has a background in emotional focused couple therapy. So we’ll be focusing more on couples, relationships, which will be a big topic now on the podcast. Of course, we’ll still bring in some other viewpoints so we don’t become too self-indulgent. But yeah, it will just be great. And Michael also have a lot of experience in this field.

So I’m super happy to have you here, Michael, and also just for the audience to get to know you a bit better.

Michael Preston (01:02.723)
well, I’m really excited and privileged and honored that you would ask me to be a part of this Thomas. Yeah, I’m really excited. This would be fun. I love talking about what we do and looking forward to bringing in some more EFT perspective and language. Yeah, that’s what I do. I love emotionally focused couples therapy. I’ve been doing it for a long time and looking forward to

Kind of seeing where this thing goes. This will be a lot of fun.

Thomas Westenholz (01:32.833)
Yeah, Michael, you know what one thing that I’m so curious to kind of hear about is why EFT? Like, because there’s so many different things that people can study if they want to do therapy, a couple therapies. Why EFT? Right. And I wonder what kind of got you and I know you’re really passionate about this, right? So I really would love to hear about what got you into EFT and why choose that route instead of all these different modalities that might be out there.

Michael Preston (01:50.732)
Not yet.

Michael Preston (01:59.595)
Yeah, well, guess, yeah, that’s a good question because I started my program in 2010 and I went to a very interesting program that I really loved and look back with a lot of fondness, which is something that’s really, I, I cherish that because since coming out and getting out of school and

meeting other therapists, it’s not always that people have a great experience in their grad school and their program tutors and professors aren’t as kind and generous as mine were to all of us. So I feel really, really grateful to have been in a program, but specifically that program was a non-diagnostic program, which was really abnormal for most people. So there was always a very specific

teaching that the school that I was at was very Carl Rogers informed, person centered, humanistic, experiential. And that was really different because we would do, we did the DSM class, the diagnostic class that’s required for American schools. And of course we did it, but they would often say, we don’t see people coming into our often as office as our depressed client, right? Or

our ADHD kid, right? It would be, here is Joe and Joe is struggling with depression and we want to help him find a way out of that depression, right? And so that was really, that was the foundation of how I was taught to be a therapist. And we did a lot of practicing around reflections and validations and not going into advice giving.

that really helped us just hold a sense of that very Carl Rogers humanistic space, right? That all behavior makes sense if you’re willing to understand it. And our main tool in the therapy room is the relationship that we have with our clients and our ability to validate their experience and explore with them. And so in that program, and my first gig in the therapy world was in a inpatient alcohol and drug rehab center, which is very different than what I was being taught at school.

Michael Preston (04:22.967)
And we go in and suddenly it’s, you have the information that they need and you’ve got to deliver that to them. And then you’ve got to tell them to stop thinking this way and start doing this way. And if people don’t want to, if people don’t get sober, then it’s because they’re not ready. They’re not ready to be sober and they’re not willing to do the work. And so it’s all the like kindness around why people do the things they do was just stripped out of the institution that I was in.

because now it’s about keeping people sober and it was not. And the addiction world is, is, has a really low success rate. Right. And yet, and yet, and yet they keep doubling down on the same type of therapy that they’re offering, which is primarily cognitive behavioral therapy, which is just tell people and the, you know, the, the research shows like if they’re in therapy, they’re fine. Right. And so CBT in therapy,

Thomas Westenholz (04:59.658)
I’m not surprised.

Michael Preston (05:20.917)
As far as your progress notes go, you can show my client made progress as long as they’re in therapy. But the longevity of it, right, really starts to tail off and it just, and then they have to come back, right? Because they need someone to be telling them what those thoughts need to be and challenging those thoughts. And as long as the environment provides all of that for them. Right? So I did that for several years, but I knew that a couples therapy is what I wanted to do.

Thomas Westenholz (05:42.762)
this.

Michael Preston (05:49.591)
We were in a marriage and family program. And in that program, it was really clear. I like working with couples and I like challenging couples. part of that is probably because I’m ADHD. And individual therapy for me, like didn’t grab my attention enough. And so I was like, okay, okay, I’m listening, I’m listening.

So I did like that about the addiction world. I ran groups, know, there were a bunch of people we’d chat and all these things. And then I had read Sue’s work at school when I was in my grad program. Didn’t understand any of it, honestly. Could not understand. was like, just, it’s, it’s, she’s so smart, but she was way over my head. And then I was working with a friend and he was like, Hey, I was doing my private practice at this point and

breaking away from the addiction world as far as like me being in it. And, you know, the friend said, well, why don’t you get trained in emotionally focused therapy? And I was like, yeah, there was that book I read that one time and it was okay. Yeah. Let me go, let me go, let me go get a training. And so I showed up at the externship in Atlanta in 2019 with Michael Barnett and Sylvina Oren, who are the trainers out in Los Angeles now.

And they started talking about attachment, which was what my grad school was based in, was an attachment. had a really brilliant professor who loved attachment. So we always talked about it. Validations, reflections, very Carl Rogers and humanistic and very experiential. And I was like, they’re doing the thing.

that I was taught like how to do therapy well, except what they were doing was organizing it in a very specific way, right? That said, hey, here’s these tools. And I love woodworking and one of the things that I because I love working with my hands as well. And it gives me a break from thinking a lot and doing stuff with my head and therapy. But when you make a table, right, you follow specific steps, right? So it makes sense to me that like,

Michael Preston (08:14.773)
I don’t want to grab a 300 grit sandpaper when I’m just starting because it’s not going to, I don’t need it yet, right? That’s going to be the finishing touch, right? But you start with a 60 grit, 80 grit, 120 grit, and you move up, right? And then you get this beautiful piece of wood in the end. And essentially that’s what EFT was doing was saying, hey, here’s the beginning tools. And you’re really going to stay with these things. And then there’s going to come a time where you start to see these things. And I was like, man.

Yeah, okay, this makes sense. I’m going to use these tools until I see the couple do these things. And then when the couple starts doing these things, I can go to this place, right? And this place is the deeper needs, the thing that I was like, this is what I want to do, right? This is the space I want to work in. But I would work in it, as all therapists do, which is this like really deeply vulnerable place for people. And I would work with it in couples therapy. And, you know, it wasn’t helping.

But what I learned in EFT was I hadn’t helped the couple deescalate. And so I would have them be very vulnerable with each other in my sessions, but their relationship couldn’t tolerate such vulnerability and they would end up more hurt. And so I really wasn’t helping people as well as I could. And when I saw EFT by the end of that externship, I left going, this is it. This is all I’m going to do because it made so much sense to me, but it provided me a very particular map.

on not only how to help couples like go to depth and really help heal old traumas, attachment styles, all their wounds, but it also helped me see I can help couples in a particular way get to a stage where that work would be effective. And having a really clear map. instead of walking into my sessions and going, wonder what my couples are going to bring today.

Thomas Westenholz (10:06.248)
Yes.

Michael Preston (10:13.057)
I walk into a going, know where on that road they are and I know where I’m going with them. And so it feels really, it’s so much like I’ve got my hand on the wheel as a therapist today, far more than I ever did before I started doing EFT. Maybe that’s a long answer to a… Yeah, you’re have to me off. Cause anytime you ask me about EFT, it’s gonna be a long answer.

Thomas Westenholz (10:29.864)
Amazing. Amazing. You know, there’s so much like I’m like so many frets here. You mentioned so I was like, we can go talk about CBT I have lots to say about that. And you know, it was interesting when you said about that you weren’t really taken into working with individuals. You said for me, there was something else about working with couples where I could be fully present, pay more attention.

Michael Preston (10:43.03)
you

Thomas Westenholz (10:58.928)
And I think for me, because I had very similar, not that I found it boring to work with couples as individuals, but there was something about with couples, I had a real attachment figure, right? And if we look at pretty much all trauma, it’s relational. Yes, you can have shock trauma where you fall off a horse, but that’s pretty easy to treat, right? But any kind of other trauma is pretty much always has a relational component, right? But that means that often I found in individuals,

Michael Preston (11:23.427)
Mm-hmm.

Thomas Westenholz (11:26.906)
It could be quite challenging because often you don’t have that attachment figure or that figure who might have caused, right? But in couples, I suddenly had a live attachment figure who did want to be there, who just didn’t know how to be responsive, right? And that gave me an opportunity to not just through cognition, but through a felt embodied experience, give them a new experience of what it means to have safe attachment, right? And that I found was just so much exactly.

Michael Preston (11:32.771)
That’s right.

Michael Preston (11:51.907)
Yeah, you’re talking. You’re talking. I already know.

Thomas Westenholz (11:55.216)
I know we talk about individual therapy. Yes, we built the relationship, but it’s never going to be the same as a close attachment giving them that response, right? So this is why I think it was just something about, here I have the opportunity for something that is very close to them to be able to help them re-engineer so they can actually meet these cues that they’re obviously missing when they come into couple therapy. That’s why they come in in the first place. And I found that was so helpful, not just for the couple,

Michael Preston (12:04.193)
No, it’s not. It’s not.

Michael Preston (12:12.365)
Mm-hmm.

Thomas Westenholz (12:25.01)
but also for the individual, whether they had anxiety or depression, it started suddenly alleviating, right? And those symptoms got much better as they started having a more safe response. I’m like, it’s kind of like, and this is why I also said when you said cognitive behavioral therapy, I was like, woo, I want to talk about this. Because I think it got very, I’m not saying it doesn’t have its place. Every tool can have its place, right? But I think it got very glorified because it was something that was very easy to research.

It was very easy to measure. Can you now stand three feet closer to the spider? Right. And often it worked with very simple phobias. And as you said, it might have positive outcome while they were in it. But often we saw when they did more long-term studies later, there it was not very effective. And that’s exactly because it didn’t deal with the underlying cause of the behaviors. Right. We often diagnose and say you have X, Y and Z based on the behaviors we are seeing. Right. And

Michael Preston (12:58.957)
Bye.

Thomas Westenholz (13:21.233)
we’re not necessarily addressing the underlying cause. And I think this is what fascinated me about attachment, that it really seemed to get to the underlying cause of a lot of these things, depression, anxiety, and other disorders that we might see. And that really fascinated me to see how it’s like we address all of it, but in one. And I think for me, the fascination actually came on a personal level. For you, it sounds like it came on a professional. For me,

It came, you know, when I was going through separation and I sat down and I thought, what is it I’m not getting? Because obviously I have some part in this, right? It doesn’t mean it’s all my fault, but I have some part. And I picked up Sue’s book, right? I bought this. I went on Amazon. I started reading, hold me tight. And it was almost like stepping into the matrix. I just got it. As I read it, I could see all my previous, all my previous relationship for like right there and also my own behaviors and

Michael Preston (14:08.951)
Yeah. Yeah.

Thomas Westenholz (14:17.666)
Instead of being angry, I suddenly just felt this compassion because I could just see we are all doing the best we can with these adaptive strategies that we were learned. And when we are in fight or flight or in stress, then we will always revert back to these default strategies if we are not aware of what’s going on. Right. So it wasn’t that I was a bad person. Yes, I had made mistake. It wasn’t that my partner was a bad person. And it took away, I think, all this blame and shame and just said, hey,

We really did the best with what we were given. I love, there’s a Christian Neff, or what she’s called, to talk about under research on compassion. And it’s very fascinating how they found that actually, you talked about this program, you were on with addicted people, right? And actually shame does the opposite. It prevents people from changing, right?

It inhibits change, even though we often thought if people feel bad about what they’re doing, they’re more like, no, it’s actually the opposite. They’re more likely to fall back into those behaviors. And that’s what I found, right? When I suddenly got this and I could be more gentle, both towards myself and also now towards a partner that I have, suddenly change become much more possible, right? So that’s something that I just found really, really fascinating.

Michael Preston (15:13.601)
Right. Yup.

That’s right.

Michael Preston (15:35.777)
Yeah, no, you’re naming the thing that I really deeply love about couples therapy, right? Even if you’re not doing EFT couples therapy, right? That at the end of the day, when I have someone share with their partner, they walk out of my office with that person. individual therapy is incredible. I use it when I have clients that are deeply stuck.

And I referred people for individual therapy to help them organize more when organizing is more difficult with their partner present, which can be very, very, dysregulating so that they can come back to couples therapy and help their partner understand what’s happening. And sometimes people do need their own space to do that. So I want to make sure I want to be very clear that I don’t think there’s no place for individual therapy. It’s such an important part of our work. And

Thomas Westenholz (16:31.374)
Salute.

Michael Preston (16:36.331)
When I finish with a couple and they leave my office for the last time, they leave there with the person who has walked the deepest trenches with them. And they get to walk this life with that person now. When they’re two, three, five years outside of therapy.

They’re walking and they’re able to look over and say, I went through some of the hardest things in my life five years ago and I still get to hold the person that held me in that place. That’s just different, right? That hits different. Amazing way to leverage partners as their most significant attachment person.

Thomas Westenholz (17:07.214)
Exactly.

Of course it is.

Thomas Westenholz (17:19.087)
Yeah. And you know, this is something that I think when I read Sue’s book, I remember back then that suddenly gave me this sense of warmth was that actually there’s a, you know, it’s part of our biology, the need for another, right? We are not meant to do life alone. And I think I very much have this idea that, you know, we grow up in a very individualized society, right? That is we glorify the more individual we can be an independent. And of course there’s a place. Yes.

Michael Preston (17:27.275)
Okay.

Michael Preston (17:41.476)
yeah.

Yeah, well that’s the great American pull yourself up by your bootstraps, right?

Thomas Westenholz (17:49.304)
Yes. And of course, there’s a place for being able to do things ourselves and not being only dependent on others. But it’s about the balance. Right. And I think often we have moved out of balance. And there was something about just saying, hey, it’s okay that I need other people and being able to, know, even I know this is a totally other topic, but there’s a lot of talk about men’s mental health. Right. Because men have learned often that it’s okay to rely. We know that men often suffer much more emotionally.

Michael Preston (18:10.299)
yeah.

Thomas Westenholz (18:16.952)
when they go through separation and women do because women tend to have on average more support network that they can rely on, meaning they’re not suddenly completely alone. A lot of men give up most of their friendships and support network when they’re married. And suddenly when it doesn’t work, they found themselves very isolated or they have friends, but they can’t talk to them about their emotional distress. So they try to numb it with alcohol or go watch a football game. Right. And, and therefore they tend to show up with more

psychological distress, right, and mental health issues. And therefore, I think it’s so important this message that actually, we do need other people, right? And it’s also okay for men, for all of us, by the way, not just men, but to have this, hey, we can rely on other people. And I’m not meant to do all this on my own. And for me, that was so helpful also just personally, because I started allowing myself to reach out more, you know, to other men for support, etc. And to my friends.

And that changed my relationships, not just in partnership, but also all my relationships outside partnership too, became much more warm, much more close as I started allowing myself to ask for other help, to say my friends, hey, actually, I’m struggling a bit today. Right. And suddenly I started having a sense of support that really grown, right. And become very significant. So I think I also just want to highlight how these impacts can even go outside just

the therapy room, right? And what we do with the partner, really ripples into all the different relationships.

Michael Preston (19:46.275)
You’re 100 % correct. If I had read Suze Hold Me Tight in grad school, that probably would have been better because it would have hit a good level. that’s not the one I read. Because that book, it’s powerful. Because it does draw our attention to the way that we are showing up and asks

Thomas Westenholz (19:56.651)
You

Michael Preston (20:15.219)
of us to be compassionate to our own self, but also ask us to begin building compassion for our partner and the way they’re showing up. And that’s such a key, right? Can I I compassionately hold the way I’m showing up?

Thomas Westenholz (20:22.806)
Yes. Yes.

Michael Preston (20:31.681)
while simultaneously, right, and this becomes the tricky part, simultaneously seeing the impact that that move has on my partner and then compassionately holding the response that they give me while also being able to share the impact their move has on me. So there’s a lot of movement in that.

Thomas Westenholz (20:45.793)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (20:53.173)
Yes.

And you know what you’re saying is so important because this is what I notice often in the couple room and also just on my own personal life because it’s all relatable, right? We have many of these things we see in the room. I noticed that it’s very, very difficult for people to take responsibility for how they impact the other as long as they feel shame, right? Because if me accepting accountability means that I’m a bad person, then I will try to keep defending myself, right? But when I suddenly can realize,

Michael Preston (21:03.683)
in

Thomas Westenholz (21:24.436)
It doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. It just means I made a mistake. becomes much easier to take you accept and acknowledge my partner, right? And say this had this impact and I see how it hurt you. And I think it even, you know, in many ways also made me a better parent with my children because I know before I kind of understood and integrated this, if I made a mistake with my kids, maybe I got angry or too loud or whatever, because, you know, they wouldn’t listen again and again. It happens to all of us.

Michael Preston (21:52.374)
See you

Thomas Westenholz (21:52.461)
But I would then go into being really guilty. And that could then even make me more stressed, which would make me more likely to be triggered again, right? And get angry. So it would be like a negative spiral. But after understanding this, it was much easier for me to give you compassion and say, hey, I probably overreacted. It doesn’t mean I’m a bad dad. It just means I messed up and now I need to go repair with my kids, right? And that now, of course, helped them learn a good framework, right?

for how it works when we have fracture, which we’re always gonna have, right? There will always be some fractures in life. So yeah, I just found that really fascinating that often we have to address this shame that there is, right? Before we can even acknowledge.

Michael Preston (22:31.702)
It’s huge.

Yeah, that’s huge, right? Because if you want to find, if you want to find something to hit the shame button, just go to parenting. It is so easy. If you want to write, if you’re like, does shame feel like? Become a parent and then you’ll just feel it all the time, right? It’s nonstop. I have three kids. Yeah, my kids are 11.

Thomas Westenholz (22:58.849)
You

Michael Preston (23:05.643)
and about to be nine and six. And there’s not a day that goes by that does it, that shame isn’t inviting me to come and camp, right? And yet I know that if I go camp in shame,

Thomas Westenholz (23:16.307)
Yes.

Michael Preston (23:25.961)
And something starts to go off with my kids. Like they don’t listen for the hundredth time that I’ve said it in a kind and gentle voice and whatever. If I go camp in shame, I am going to react quicker. I’m going to make more mistakes. And I won’t, shame doesn’t allow me to

Thomas Westenholz (23:35.169)
Yes.

Michael Preston (23:55.747)
trust in good enough parenting. It really doesn’t allow that. And what shame can do is come in and grab all other feelings, whether they’re frustration, whether it’s sadness, even joy. It pushes every other emotion out of the room. And I no longer have access to it. All I have is shame and the strategies I have to make it stop, which for many men become yelling.

Thomas Westenholz (24:01.344)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (24:12.833)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (24:21.078)
Yes.

Michael Preston (24:25.379)
walking away, leaving, shutting down, like just shut it because you know it’s like hitting a it’s like shame comes in and all the other emotional breakers flip but the only way to turn off shame is to go turn off the whole house right like pull the main breaker down and go I can’t feel anything because I turned anything on shame is there to meet it and that’s really really hard on their partners and their kids

Thomas Westenholz (24:38.379)
Yes, yes.

Thomas Westenholz (24:48.093)
Yes.

Michael Preston (24:54.893)
But this is all that we were given, right? We weren’t given, you know, as men, just to name a few things there, we weren’t given a lot of tools, right? We were honestly, if you showed up emotionally, and maybe this is changing some today, but for gentlemen around our age, if you showed up emotionally in the locker room, that was an invitation to being like,

Thomas Westenholz (24:56.906)
Yes.

Michael Preston (25:24.621)
punished. It was ripping and it was joking and I love that culture of just joking with each other and being able to make fun. That’s really, really fun. It’s like if you want to get to know me deeply, like you’re going to have to laugh with me. Like that’s my gateway. We spend our life doing like sad work. If you’re like my friend and you won’t laugh with me, I’m like, you’re not going to be really deep friends. You want to know my heart. You got to open the gate through laughter.

Thomas Westenholz (25:25.227)
Yes, yes.

Thomas Westenholz (25:32.736)
Heh

Thomas Westenholz (25:42.971)
Yeah.

Thomas Westenholz (25:50.218)
Yeah.

Michael Preston (25:54.243)
Because I got to know how to come up and spend some time with you in lightheartedness, right? But as men, we weren’t given the tools to even acknowledge emotions. Because to acknowledge them was then to say, you know, mean, the first thing that you would say as a kid was, what are you, some girl, right? Because emotions were given to girls. That was it. That was the girl’s world. And what we didn’t know was, what we weren’t taught was that emotions are humanity.

Thomas Westenholz (25:54.378)
Yeah.

Michael Preston (26:24.141)
Like, what makes us human? It doesn’t make us male or female, it just makes us human. And so we end up cutting off, disowning the whole part of our own humanity. And what all that research has shown is for the avoidant, which is normally male, I mean, that’s normally, obviously there’s loads of withdrawals that are female, but the avoidant attachment style has a higher emotional distress than the anxious attachment style, who’s…

Thomas Westenholz (26:25.766)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (26:48.746)
Yes.

Michael Preston (26:51.991)
who’s the visibly distressed one, right? Anxious attachment is spinning and you can see them spinning and they’re yelling or they’re getting upset or they’re slamming something down or they’re throwing something across the room. Like they’re the ones and everybody would look at that person like, they are, they are completely dysregulated. they’re, so upset. And they’re, and their partner is just like, wow. Right. And everybody goes, he’s so calm. No.

Thomas Westenholz (26:53.93)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (26:58.932)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (27:20.923)
Yes.

Michael Preston (27:22.045)
internally not calm, Not calm, way actually more distressed than their partner. And then all that distress, there’s nothing else to do but shut off, right? It’s like, boom, break your flips and the lights have to go out.

Thomas Westenholz (27:34.719)
this.

Yeah, you’re so spot on. know, again, there’s so many things I want to say to what you’re saying here. There’s so many topics. You you talk first about the parenting, right? And how we need to allow ourselves to not be perfect parents. And I would even say perfect parenting is harmful because kids have to have some sense of resilience, meaning overcoming, challenging. It’s like over protecting them. kids have to experience fracture.

Michael Preston (27:42.338)
Yeah.

Thomas Westenholz (28:05.701)
What’s important is that we learn how to repair, right? The issue happens when we can’t repair with them, right? And it’s just left. Then they don’t learn that process. But actually, I would even argue that some rupture has to happen for them to grow up as functional, confident adults that know, hey, I don’t have to be afraid if there is some conflict in my relationships, because I know conflict can happen. And it doesn’t mean people disengage or disappear. We come back and we sort it out, right? So I think

Michael Preston (28:18.915)
Yeah!

Thomas Westenholz (28:34.653)
You know, that’s so important to do make mistakes, right? Because we’re all going to do that.

Michael Preston (28:40.291)
Yeah, there’s a research that shows the kind of the minimum, the minimum attunement for a parent is around 30%. That’s what we need, right? That’s, that’s really encouraging. The optimal, the optimal is around 40 ish. But is it like over 70 % attunement, right? Is harmful to the child. Meaning you’re always there, always responding, always do like, because

Thomas Westenholz (28:47.102)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (28:51.007)
Yeah, it is.

Michael Preston (29:07.297)
The child doesn’t develop a sense of their own identity. They aren’t given enough space.

Thomas Westenholz (29:10.734)
Exactly. Yes, to get autonomy. yes, and that can often be a parent that’s hyper vigilant, right? That is over tuning. Yes, they have their own anxiety. So they’re over tuning to the child and want to accommodate which again, I’ve definitely seen several times, right? And also you mentioned about, which I heard what you said about men and not having been taught how to engage with emotions because we were kind of told that’s a girly thing, right? That

Michael Preston (29:15.235)
So you have to pull back.

Michael Preston (29:20.085)
Yes, I think I the stuff.

Thomas Westenholz (29:39.761)
You know, one thing that really opened my eyes was start looking. And actually, this was more something I learned as part of my training in psychedelic assisted therapy, which was about how we integrate all the different elements of cognition, of emotion, limbic system, and soma, the bodily signals. And that all these are actually a biological compass that help us come back to homostasis and balance. It has nothing to do with men or women.

We have all been given this by nature because they help us know when we are out of sync and when we are in a place where the environment isn’t helping us grow, facilitate, right? And nurture us. This is why sensations tell us you’re hungry. That means now you need to eat. It’s why they tell you you’re cold. Put on a jacket, right? Because that’s how you get back to a place of balance. If we ignore them and keep standing in the cold.

Well, then you get a cold. If you keep standing there, eventually you might die. So they’re bringing us back in balance. This is a bodily sensation, but emotions are the same. They’re just another of these three layers, right? Anger has a really good biological purpose of stopping something that’s violating us in some way or another, right? So in the right context and applied in the right way, it can be hugely beneficial, right? It’s often because we haven’t learned how to listen to this compass, right?

Michael Preston (30:39.331)
Yeah, I am.

Thomas Westenholz (30:58.236)
So often we keep, know, I always see this, you know, if the compass isn’t working, we’re going to get lost. Of course we are. Right. And I think because we haven’t learned to listen, like you said, we often get really, really lost. And then we end up in a therapy room, right. Because we don’t really know how this compacts works and then how we meant to understand the other. If I don’t even know how my own compass works. Right. So yeah, I think that’s a really important point that, you know, we need to start framing this more.

Michael Preston (31:04.707)
100%.

Thomas Westenholz (31:26.063)
and understanding that emotion isn’t about being a female thing or a male thing. It’s a biological thing that really help us navigate this world and how this organism can come back in balance, right?

Michael Preston (31:38.413)
When I was…

Michael Preston (31:43.369)
running an intensive outpatient program. And for those that don’t know what that is, it’s a program for people that are addicted, they’ve either finished a residential space and they need to work. So it’s an evening program that runs three nights a week for three hours each night. And then you do individual therapy and it’s usually about 10 weeks. What it means is you’re doing a hundred hours of therapy in 10 weeks. It is intensive and it’s outpatient and it’s usually focused on drugs and alcohol. And

One of the things that when I took over, designed each 10 weeks. And one of the weeks was emotion week. And I would start with just usually was in generally was a group of men. And I would start by putting head categories of emotion on the board, right? Just going happy, sad, confused, hurt, angry.

you know, up at the top. And I would just say, let’s come up with as many emotional words in these categories as we can. And man, man. I mean, if we could get four words a category, that was as good as we could get, right? Literally just didn’t have language to describe an experience. But once we would get a bunch up there, I would then ask everyone to pick a word

under each category that really describes how they would use that word. So under sad, you might see depressed, lost, lonely, hurt, embarrassed, right? And I would ask them to choose a word for each category and then we would go around and share like which word really fits with if I were to say, I feel sad today. And what would be the most prominent thing that I sad? You know, so often you would have someone say,

hurt. And then another person would say lonely, right? And those are really different experiences, but they both get shoved into the category of sad. And then what can happen, especially with men is someone says sad. And the only thing that we think is, they’re lonely. So let me come in and be close. And they’re going, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa,

Michael Preston (34:10.892)
but we never addressed embarrassed because they never said embarrassed because they said sad. And then we have to interpret what sad means, but we will always interpret it as to what I might mean when I say sad, but then we won’t be able to attune because it’s not the same thing. And so helping people have a depth of emotional expression, right? To be able to say, it really hurt me when you said this, right?

Thomas Westenholz (34:28.124)
this.

Thomas Westenholz (34:37.18)
Yes.

Michael Preston (34:40.084)
And when I feel hurt, I go away. Because I don’t think that there’s a way for me to share hurt and that be met.

Thomas Westenholz (34:49.03)
Yeah.

Michael Preston (34:50.593)
And so it’s easier when I go away and I find some way to patchwork the hurt that I did. Right. But I don’t have a, there’s no model for what it means to turn to another and say that hurt. And they go, I see how that.

Thomas Westenholz (34:56.538)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (35:10.127)
Yes.

Michael Preston (35:11.041)
And so they’ll just say, I’m fine, but I’ll go away.

Thomas Westenholz (35:13.723)
Yeah, yes.

Michael Preston (35:18.179)
So helping people find that language, first of all, that’s usually the first step is just a language for this. But then also when we do this in our session and I say, can you turn to your partner? Can you share? It hurts me when this happened between us. And their partner goes, I had no idea. I just thought you didn’t care. I thought you were cold.

Thomas Westenholz (35:36.187)
Yes.

Michael Preston (35:45.933)
right? And it helps me to hear that it’s hurting you. That really tells me you care. And then usually people go, I don’t even know what to do with that response, right? Not what they’re used to. It begins to build that possibility, right? Just the possibility that maybe there’s something different I can do if I can find the words. If I can slow myself down, if I can identify the emotion and name it with my partner and then my partner can respond.

Thomas Westenholz (35:56.699)
Yes. Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (36:06.8)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (36:13.112)
Yeah.

Yes.

Michael Preston (36:16.949)
It’s like, this is where we start to get people going that you’re inviting me to a different way of being, which is.

Thomas Westenholz (36:23.684)
Yes. And you know, that’s so important what you’re saying, Michael, because I think it’s actually one of the things you talked about the structure of EFT in the beginning, right? And I think what I liked about the structure is what you’re talking about now, that it gives them a common language and also a language so they can start understanding their own internal processes, which for a lot of people, they will even say understanding my own internal process was totally new. They’ll say, I never realized it was like this. When they start

Michael Preston (36:51.352)
Even anxious, right? Even the anxious partner who has a bunch of emotion doesn’t slow down enough to really sit with underlying ones.

Thomas Westenholz (36:55.674)
huh.

Yes, exactly. And that’s why I love, you know, the the framework that we have where we can start understanding, okay, what is the cue that sets this off for you to what is then, you know, what’s your reaction? What is the first reaction that happens? What is the meaning you make of what’s happening, right? And and often, of course, they have no idea about the internal meanings interpretations that’s happening in their partner. And all they see is a response that the partner is having to that internal interpretation, right? And then they interpret that in their own

framework, right? And often, we’re not even aware of how we interpret moments that is happening in front of us. Often, we think that what is happening in front of us is reality. We’re not realizing that, you know, what happens so quickly is we go back into a memory box, we fill in all the gaps that was not there that was not communicated. And then we make up our own meaning of what that was. And then we respond to that, right? So it’s almost like sometimes, you know, you see two people who are in completely two different worlds.

Michael Preston (37:55.841)
Yeah.

Thomas Westenholz (37:56.237)
And of course, they’re missing each other, right? And when we help them deconstruct like in EFT, right, by seeing, hey, what’s a cue? Okay, what does that mean? What’s the meaning of this? What, do you react? And what do you then react? What’s a felt sense? It’s kind of we organize all these different elements we talk about, right? The sensation, the emotion, the cognition together, and suddenly they can start making sense and have a language for how to communicate what’s happening internally, right? And we kind of

I say, you know, when somebody asked me, what are you doing? I said, I’m a jungle guide. He said, I thought you were a therapist. I said, yes, but it’s like being a jungle guide. It’s so blurry. You can’t see from all the trees where you’re going. Right. And what I’m doing is I’m stopping, you know, walk down to the crocodiles or where all the snakes are, which is why we interrupt. Right. I interrupt and I say, wait, let’s slow down when they start, you know, and I say, I know that this path leads to the waterfall.

Michael Preston (38:42.237)
Get up!

I love you.

Michael Preston (38:51.683)
Right. It’s beautiful. I love it.

Thomas Westenholz (38:52.246)
So really, I’m not a therapist, I’m a jungle guide. Yes, I just know that if you walk this way, you walk straight down to the crocs, right? it’s like, yeah, exactly. And, and you know, I think you’re so spot on with, it’s really helpful when we create that language. Because if I’m speaking Chinese and you’re speaking English, then it’s really difficult for us to and we’re going to misunderstand each other.

Michael Preston (38:59.191)
Yeah, there’s a hyper pit over there. You don’t go that way. That’s funny. that’s great.

Thomas Westenholz (39:20.025)
and I will start getting irritated with you and you will start getting irritated with me. And it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person or I’m a bad person. It’s just because we can’t reach each other, right? So it’s kind of like giving them a common framework and a common language so they can actually start hearing what the other person is saying.

Michael Preston (39:37.709)
Yeah, you know, one of my clients put it really simply and profoundly and we were reflecting on what has really changed in their relationships. And the client said for a long time when their partner would bring a problem to them. They said, what was so frustrating was I wanted, I just wanted to help. Right. And I thought they were bringing me a problem so that

I could help find a solution. And then the solution just got more bad feedback. It got more frustrating. And then they said, but I didn’t know they were looking for soothing. And they said, once I knew they needed soothing, not solutions, that was a game changer. Because I could speak the language.

Thomas Westenholz (40:13.761)
Yes. Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (40:31.875)
Yes.

Yes.

Michael Preston (40:35.753)
of what my partner’s needs were, which was they need me to hear them, understand them, and help soothe.

And then things got a lot easier. And then they said, suddenly my partner could take in things that they couldn’t before. But.

Thomas Westenholz (40:52.024)
Yes. Yes. I think this is, know, what you’re saying is like, it makes me laugh because it’s a perfect example of often a dynamic we see with somebody with anxious and more avoidant where, let’s say the anxious come home and say, my boss has been really terrible. And avoidant wants to problem solve, right? And go into, let’s look for a new job. And he’s missing the cue that she just needs soothing, maybe a hug, whatever it might be in that moment. Yeah. And then he tries to do all this and she probably gets more frustrated with him.

Michael Preston (41:07.107)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

KEEP CHOPPING

Thomas Westenholz (41:21.868)
because the cue, which is, I just needed a hug or whatever it is, it’s not met, right? So, and then he starts saying and giving up and saying, I always get it wrong anyway. So what’s the point of trying? And then they start moving further and further away. So it’s like when you said that, just, could almost picture, right? This classical of missing each other and where they avoid and often say, whatever I do, I can’t get it right. So I might as well not try because they try to

practically find a solution, right? And they’re doing it from a place of I care. What they’re really saying is care. They’re just missing the underlying cue. This is that I need emotional soothing. I’m not looking for you to find a practical, at least not right now.

Michael Preston (42:02.359)
Yeah, we can actually get there. But first I need to be soothed. And not everyone is looking for that all the time. And that’s fine. I think what is so important, and one of the reasons I really do like EFT a lot, is because what works in my relationship is not necessarily going to be the way it works in another relationship. But what I can do is help people go,

Thomas Westenholz (42:04.172)
Yes. Yes.

Michael Preston (42:31.403)
what happens to you when you hear your partner here. And then I can start getting a sense of what their body is doing, right? And that what their response is in that moment tells me whether it’s working or not. Whereas in traditional therapy, the way that I was doing it before, which was telling the couples what they should do. Again, I had all the answers, right? And what EFT has helped me do is if I send something and then I get a response and

Thomas Westenholz (42:37.206)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (42:44.033)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (42:49.943)
Yes.

Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (42:59.639)
Yes. Yes.

Michael Preston (43:00.021)
And the response is nice. And the person goes, I just, don’t trust it. Right. And, and so the response is nice, but taking it in isn’t. And so then I go, Hey, we have more blocks. Right. And so we, it’s an, it’s information, the body, right. It’s information. And I am there to help go, okay, we’ve just hit, we hit a roadblock. And even though this was really nice, I need to understand why we hit the road.

Thomas Westenholz (43:10.688)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (43:19.671)
That’s right.

Michael Preston (43:30.965)
And when I’m expecting it to go in and someone says, I can’t trust it, I go and ask and I say, what’s happening? Right. And they’ll say some version of for so long, it hasn’t been this.

Thomas Westenholz (43:43.639)
That’s right.

Michael Preston (43:44.227)
Because our brains are so intelligent and the brain right there is going don’t expect this tomorrow. So they’re already primed up and they keep their block up a bit. We can help them with that if we know it’s And we see that not as a barrier but as a rational and understandable reasonable response given the context and the story.

Thomas Westenholz (43:50.719)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (44:08.556)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (44:12.083)
Absolutely.

Michael Preston (44:12.875)
And we can find ways through those barriers in time as we begin to build a predictability in the relationship, right? Because we want

Thomas Westenholz (44:16.001)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (44:21.633)
Yeah, exactly. And that’s why, like you said, it doesn’t work when we tell people what to First of all, when they’re in stress response, it goes out the window anyway, which is why we are there to help regulate, right? So we can come back. also, as you said, when maybe they do the right way, there is no right way. But you know what I mean? When what we maybe would have told them to do and they do that, then often you’re right. The other person might not be ready to take in that new cue.

Michael Preston (44:33.539)
That’s right.

Thomas Westenholz (44:49.963)
because it’s so unfamiliar. So they might still resist. But in the therapy room, we can then help them. Right? You said normally they would maybe get stuck outside the therapy room there. Right? And say, tried this, but it didn’t work. She still got pissed. But we can then help them. Like you said, go and say with a partner who maybe can’t take in this new safety cue and understand for them, what is that block? What is that resistance? What is that fear? Then they can communicate that back.

And now the other person can see that in a different frame of reference instead of seeing they’re always failing or can’t get it right. And so we can help these interactions move forward when they hit these roadblocks, right? Which I think is so wonderful. And probably one of the most useful things I learned from EFT was exactly that of what do you do when you get the right response, right? Because in the beginning, I didn’t know, okay, we got the right response. We got that, you know, they responded to the cue.

Michael Preston (45:39.159)
Yeah, yeah,

Thomas Westenholz (45:42.389)
But then nothing happened and I would be like, but it’s really nice. And now we have kind of a framework for how do we then move that forward? Right? How do we keep progressing that? Or what do we even do if there’s a hostile response? Right. And to be honest, when I started, I didn’t know what to do with that. Now, of course, luckily, we have a framework, right, that can help us with what do we do if suddenly somebody is softened and the other one, how do we then make sure they don’t get hurt, right, from having shared so they go back into protective?

Michael Preston (45:49.687)
Yeah.

Michael Preston (45:54.883)
Yeah, it happened.

Thomas Westenholz (46:11.721)
How can we step in and protect them, right?

Michael Preston (46:14.951)
How can we call that catching a bullet? Because it can be really hard. It can be so hard to either vulnerably share with a partner and their partner have a bit of a negative response, right? And that can hurt deeply because they took a big risk. It can also be hurtful when someone takes a risk and another person really shows up, right?

Thomas Westenholz (46:18.729)
That’s right.

Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (46:25.525)
Yes, yes.

Thomas Westenholz (46:31.209)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (46:43.071)
Yes.

Michael Preston (46:43.895)
And I think about another client that I had when the response was beautiful and they had been together, married for 30 years, and this partner had been asking for that response for 30 years. And then the response came and the client looked at me and said, I am just so angry.

And I can’t even know. I know he’s doing exactly what I’ve wanted. But the minute he gives that to me, what happens? Where were you for 30 years? Right? Do you get how this is what I’ve been asking for? And the minute it showed up in the room, it hit all the pain of the years. Of course it did. So we have to kind of go, woo. And so this this

Thomas Westenholz (47:29.18)
of course.

Michael Preston (47:35.995)
The partner was just deer in headlights. What just happened? I did the thing, right? I just did the thing. And unfortunately, doing the thing now doesn’t erase not doing the thing for 30 years. And so that was living in her body quite profoundly. And it took some time. And again, just holding both truths, right? I see my partner doing something different. I do feel grateful they’re doing it. But even while they’re doing it,

Thomas Westenholz (48:03.22)
Yes.

Michael Preston (48:05.227)
I feel the hurt of not doing it for 30 years. And holding both can be very, very delicate and difficult for couples to do. It’s a difficult skill to learn. When we did a baby reveal, gender reveal for our second child, my third child, my son, upon seeing he was getting another sister, was so upset.

Thomas Westenholz (48:08.943)
of not having had a daa-

Thomas Westenholz (48:15.349)
Yes.

Michael Preston (48:35.171)
And when I checked in, I checked in, he was just upset because he goes, I wanted a brother, right? I don’t need another sister. I have one of those. He’s like, I’ve got a truck. I don’t need another truck, right? Same toy. I want a different toy, right? Of course he does. And so we just validated that with him, right? The frustration and the letdown that he felt.

But then he comes back, right? He was six at the time. He comes back and he says, but I am still excited. But I am still excited about having another sibling. I was like, yeah. I said, that must be really interesting feeling both excited and disappointed at the same time. Right. It’s really taught. And it’s really, really like holding him in that moment of saying, wow,

Thomas Westenholz (49:24.819)
Yeah, dual emotions, yeah, that’s right.

Michael Preston (49:33.567)
You are feeling excited and disappointed about the same thing in the same moment. That’s got to feel conflicting in your body sometimes when we don’t not all of us is jiving, right?

Thomas Westenholz (49:39.027)
Yes.

Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (49:46.909)
Yes. And that can be hard for people to navigate on their own, right? As just like even there is sample here for even, you know, a child, of course, but also adults. And I think that’s why.

Michael Preston (49:51.747)
just can’t do it.

Michael Preston (49:56.707)
Well, if nobody’s ever done that for you as a child, you’re going to have no idea how to do it, right? You’re only, you’re going to get drowned out by one, right?

Thomas Westenholz (49:59.889)
Yes, that’s right. That’s right.

Yeah, that’s absolutely… And you know, that’s why I think this whole idea of part works is becoming very popular in the therapeutic setting. There can be different parts present at the same… I can even feel happiness and joy and anger at the same time of the same… As you say, if suddenly I crave something for so many years and suddenly it comes, there can be suddenly the anger of not having had it, right? There can be sadness of grieving.

Michael Preston (50:15.329)
Yes,

Thomas Westenholz (50:31.854)
that time I didn’t have it. And that can be the joy of suddenly getting it now. It can all come in. And that can be very overwhelming for people to have all these conflicting. And like you said, because we haven’t learned to listen, to give language and realize that all this can happen at the same time.

Michael Preston (50:37.731)
What?

Michael Preston (50:48.163)
Right. And say we don’t have the ability to listen to two songs when one of them is a little bit louder. Right. So in this moment, the anger was a little bit louder and it drowns out the others. But in holding the emotion with a client and going, I see it, I hear it. I even understand why you’d be so angry. Of course you are. And really validating that. Right. And what it does is it turns down that volume.

Thomas Westenholz (50:57.896)
Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (51:12.327)
Yes. Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (51:18.674)
Yes.

Michael Preston (51:19.132)
When we can come in about like we need this is what we have is known as.

Michael Preston (51:33.763)
It’s not self-soothing, it’s co-regulation. word was a mistake. It’s co-regulation where I come in and say, see you, I get it. It makes sense. And then suddenly the volume turns down on the anger. And then I can ask, I’m also wondering,

Thomas Westenholz (51:35.997)
Yes, that’s right, that’s right, that’s right. Exactly, that’s right.

Thomas Westenholz (51:45.491)
Yes.

Michael Preston (51:57.097)
What else is happening for you? You’re so angry and yet this is the thing you’ve been looking for. And then they’re able to go, yeah, mean, that I am like that. does feel good. It does feel good. And it’s angry. Okay, we can hold both. We can have both.

Thomas Westenholz (52:14.78)
Yes, I think that’s a beautiful analogy, Michael, about the volume, because I think often the reactive emotion have a higher volume, right? And that means it drowns out, like if there’s lower, I also DJ for fun and the lower frequencies will be drowned out by the other eye. So what you’re saying is, hey, we turn down the volume on these frequencies so we can start hearing the other song too. And actually, that’s how we blend songs when we DJ, very similar to what we do. We are doing emotion.

Michael Preston (52:23.107)
We are higher.

Michael Preston (52:29.922)
Yeah

Michael Preston (52:36.387)
That’s it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s great!

Thomas Westenholz (52:43.026)
You know, it’s fascinating of all these roles. I I was just thinking we need new terms than the therapist because we are jungle guide, we are emotional DJs and we are also bodyguards, like you said, catching the bullet. So I saw us jumping in in slow motion there with a bulletproof vest on. So we are bodyguards, emotional DJs with jungle guides. I think that’s what we need to put on us is much better than the therapy, you know, that title.

Michael Preston (52:44.375)
You’re an emotional DJ!

Michael Preston (52:51.043)
Hahahaha

Michael Preston (52:56.215)
Yeah, look at this. Woo!

that’s so good.

this is so good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m not a therapist anymore. I’m an emotional DJ. Wow, that’s so good. I love it. I love it. That’ll work out.

Thomas Westenholz (53:12.946)
Sounds so much better, doesn’t it?

And you know what? To some extent it’s true. It’s actually a good analogy because that’s exactly what a DJ does. They basically blend the frequencies so we can start hearing them and if one is drowning out the other one it doesn’t work. The songs doesn’t mix. One will just… And yes, and that’s exactly what you are saying now about emotion. That’s exactly…

Michael Preston (53:30.775)
Right? It just becomes one sound.

I love that you’re taking this analogy to a place that I had no idea how this all worked. So I love this. This is so cool.

Thomas Westenholz (53:43.324)
Yes. So it’s like that’s basically what you’re doing, except we don’t have a, of course, a mixer where we can just tone down the mid frequencies. If we had one like that for emotions, that would be like, you know, down with the anger a little bit. That’s enough there.

Michael Preston (53:50.125)
Yeah.

Michael Preston (53:54.915)
That’s what, that’s what the movie inside out, right? They have the big emotional board, right? That’s it. It’s just, we’re just, and until, until we have good reason and a safe space to be able to do that. Right. And I want to emphasize it’s not just the safe space, but it’s a good reason. Right. If I turn down that anger.

Thomas Westenholz (54:00.431)
Yeah, yes, exactly. That’s it.

Thomas Westenholz (54:12.081)
Yes. Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (54:17.413)
Yes.

Michael Preston (54:23.357)
and I share with you, I need to have a response. Because if I don’t have a response, I don’t have a good reason. And if I don’t have a good reason, I will not do it. Right? That the good reason must be there, which is then always seeing the good reason is because that’s how my partner comes close. That’s how I come close or turn the music on right in the first place, right? The avoidance. He’s just kind of on mute.

Thomas Westenholz (54:28.795)
Yeah.

Thomas Westenholz (54:32.485)
this.

Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (54:44.241)
That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. Yes. Yes. Totally. And you know what? I love what you’re saying. And it just made me think of even we haven’t even learned what we use this term relationship. I’m in a relationship, but we’ve never learned what does it actually mean to relate. Right. Because often, you know, for me, it’s very much this idea that relating

is understanding the internal experience of the other and then understanding my, it doesn’t mean we have to agree. And often we get stuck in, you know, you often see couple trying to say, I’m the one who’s, that’s why we have this saying, you want to be right or you want to be happy, right? That’s funny saying, because often people are stuck in, their logical, no, you did this, no, you actually did that. And they, want to be right. Right. And I think often that’s missing because as soon as we’re trying to be right, we’re no longer relating.

Michael Preston (55:26.275)
Yeah, I’m going to stop.

Thomas Westenholz (55:40.933)
Relating has already stopped because we are not trying to understand what is the other person’s internal experience, right? And they are not trying to understand what is our. And I think very much what I see us doing this EFT in the room, besides, you know, being a bodyguard, DJing, jungle guide, is also this, that we help them come back to being able to express their internal experience and be able to listen.

which is really why people then say, now we feel more connected. Now things are getting better because we’re kind of giving a map for how to relate. Right?

Michael Preston (56:18.211)
That’s right. Yes. We have this map for therapy, but we’re also giving them a map to one another. So one of the phrases I use a lot in helping get a really clear message is I’ll say some version of, it’s like trying to land a plane at night. If I don’t turn the lights on, and I don’t clearly light up that runway,

Thomas Westenholz (56:27.686)
Yeah.

Thomas Westenholz (56:43.825)
Peace.

Michael Preston (56:48.011)
has nowhere to land. And that’s the hard and difficult job that I have because I have to slow down enough to be able to share that with my partner. And if I can, then my partner can have a clear one way and with some guidance at first, right? Because some partners don’t know how to respond. We guide a response just like you would learning anything. It’s a new skill. You’re going to need time to learn.

Thomas Westenholz (56:49.979)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (57:00.367)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (57:15.577)
Yes.

Michael Preston (57:16.245)
if we can help people find a way to light the runway up and feel confident landing the plane, and we give them a road to each other, and we give them a new road to relate, a new road. You know, people come to my office and at the end of it, they’ll often say, I’m sure you’ve heard this as well, which is, you know, we came here for better communication, and we had no idea how far that would take us. And we never even knew that it was possible to have this.

Thomas Westenholz (57:21.315)
Yes. Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (57:35.279)
this.

Michael Preston (57:43.629)
kind of relationship. We weren’t even, we didn’t even come here for that. But we’re leaving here with such a big gift because now we know we can get lost in the jungle together. And because our compass works and we have trust in one another, we can find our way out. And it’s not so scary. And we don’t need that guide with us all the

Thomas Westenholz (57:46.767)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (57:53.709)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (58:05.999)
That’s what’s so rewarding about this, right? Just what you’re saying now is that people come in and say, the sex life or he doesn’t help enough or our communication doesn’t work. And they leave with a completely new picture of how to relate because, you know, a lot of people coming into that therapy room have never had that model, right? They never had that model. So their responses make total sense, right? They make total sense.

Michael Preston (58:13.654)
Yeah.

Michael Preston (58:30.754)
Mm-hmm.

Thomas Westenholz (58:33.4)
And which is why attachment fear is helpful because it help us see this compassionate lens we started talking about instead of being judgmental just of the behavior, we see what is behind motivating that behavior. And it’s so beautiful to, like you said at the end, to suddenly see them walking away with actually a whole new way of relating to self, to the other. It’s amazing to see after a while a couple coming in and start being able to do this themselves.

Michael Preston (58:44.513)
Hmm.

Thomas Westenholz (59:01.271)
And I had a couple not long ago actually that I said, you don’t need me anymore. You don’t need me anymore because you’re doing this yourself now. I’m no, and that’s like you said, that’s a beautiful part that unlike when you described CBT in the beginning where you said, yeah, it worked when they felt, but they have to keep coming back. What’s wonderful about this is once they have it and they have had enough experiences in the therapy room of it working, of having response, they start doing it themselves at home.

and eventually they don’t need us anymore.

Michael Preston (59:31.681)
Well, you know, that’s probably a good topic for another time is to kind of name why is it that it’s so effective, right? And it has to do with accessing the places in our brain that hold our memory, right? And that emotion is what wires all of that. And this is the profound reason why EFT for me became, you know, a lot of therapies can do things like this, but I think

Thomas Westenholz (59:47.183)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (59:52.195)
Yes.

Michael Preston (01:00:01.639)
EFT really, really leverages this part of therapy, which we can talk about this in another episode, essentially what’s called memory reconsolidation. And it’s by accessing the emotional part of the brain in the deepest fear. And in the moment when that emotion is incredibly online, very hot, very, very scary, you ask them, know,

Could you even turn and share this with your partner? And they’re going to say, no, I couldn’t, I would never do that. Right? Because this is where they hold their deepest fears. It also is what wires their brain to use their protection. And so when you hit that spot and you have them help them find a way, even in that fear reached to their partner, it literally changes the brain state and creates new pathways. And so they don’t just leave with like,

Thomas Westenholz (01:00:36.428)
Yes.

Michael Preston (01:00:59.711)
a new know-how. They don’t leave with new tools. When they end therapy, they leave with a new brain. I mean, the whole circuit board has been replaced.

Thomas Westenholz (01:01:01.506)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (01:01:06.446)
Yes, absolutely. You’re spot on. wish we… totally. I wish that we could have a MRI live and they could see what happens because it’s like when they come in, they’re myctilized firing and they’re seeing their partner as a threat, right? And they’re responding in that way by retrieving, attacking, whatever it might be. And like you said, at the end, when we suddenly tap into compassion, you will see this part of the brain calm down, right? And this is also why we don’t address

the logical solutions, like some other therapists will try and find compromises. We deal with this first, because we know that when the amygdala starts slowing down, then we can access the logical part far more too, right? So suddenly at the end, it becomes relatively easy to solve most of the logical issues that were presented, right? Once we had addressed and have this map and they had repeated experience, most logical solutions become pretty easy, right? And I have seen people suddenly be able to solve things.

They’ve been fighting over for half a century, right, through a whole marriage. And suddenly they can sit and resolve it in one session. But I would never start there, right? And this is like you say, because first we go in and we work with the emotional and somatic part of the brain, right? And once we’re able to soothe that, then we can go back at the very end and look at, what are some of these adjustments you want to do, right? But it’s not where we start. And that’s really, really important.

Michael Preston (01:02:31.746)
Yes.

Thomas Westenholz (01:02:33.741)
Because I even think it applies to therapy. I know I said some critical things about CBT, but cognition, of course, has its place. Like we said, being able to use language certainly has its place, but it’s not the starting point. We need to start. We’re talking with the other layers, right? Because that’s how we naturally process the world. Naturally, we process first somatic. There’s some kind of sense. It might be light vision, hearing, touch, whatever it is, right?

Michael Preston (01:02:41.827)
Anyway.

Thomas Westenholz (01:03:00.193)
And that goes straight to limbic emotional brain that stores all the memories to try and figure out what’s going on, make meaning of it. And then cognition comes on online where we kind of know, he said this, I can’t believe he said that to me. He must not like me. But it has already gone through these others. So it makes sense to work from the bottom up instead of from the top down. Right. And I think that’s what EFT also does. Right. It helps us work from a bottom up. And then, yes, we will get to cognition. But you know what?

Michael Preston (01:03:28.771)
Let’s go.

Thomas Westenholz (01:03:29.963)
You and me can speak for hours, Michael. So I know that the audience also needs to chill or get to work or whatever they’re doing. So I think we should continue. And what we really want to encourage people who are listening to do is to send in questions to us. Because what we want to do is we want to start answering your questions that you have about relationships, about your partner, about yourself. So ping in questions if you have any one.

Michael Preston (01:03:31.747)
We can.

Michael Preston (01:03:36.035)
or even enough, yeah.

Thomas Westenholz (01:03:57.384)
I’ll put down below how you can send us any questions that you have. And we will also in the future start streaming these live streaming them, which will give you an opportunity to ask questions live in the chat where you can join. Or you could even do, I think it’s possible to do live call ins here as well in whatever you want exactly. you can get

Michael Preston (01:04:12.781)
Yeah, you can come in. can be on video or off video. That’s up to you. can a chat with us and you’ll

Thomas Westenholz (01:04:20.46)
There we go. So we want to make it more interactive. We want to make it more relevant to you guys. So I’ll put the details in the description and you’ll know how to do that going forward. But I’m so happy to have you on board, Michael. It’s adding a lot and I love your perspectives, your metaphors. And you know, there were some things you shared about your client where I just felt the softening in my own nervous system. And I hope people listening are getting that too. So it’s been awesome, man. And I look forward to doing more podcasts with you.

Michael Preston (01:04:32.387)
That’s good to be.

Michael Preston (01:04:48.001)
All right, yeah, this has been great fun. I look forward to seeing where it goes. Super, super happy for everyone listening and looking forward to your questions and finding a way to talk about them that will hopefully be kind of helpful for everyone to be able to distill and internalize the things that we’re talking about so that they can improve not only romantic relationships, but all relationships, parenting relationships, being a child to a parent relationships, coworker relationships, all of this.

applies to every type of relationship we have.

Thomas Westenholz (01:05:21.004)
That’s right, spot on. But we look forward to seeing you again, Michael, and also the audience again. So we’ll check in soon.

Michael Preston (01:05:27.435)
All right, bye now.