102. Get Your Mind Right: Preparing to Manage Chaos with F.R.A.y Focus

Summary

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Podcast Summary

The Leading Edge in Emotionally Focused Therapy

Episode 102: Get Your Mind Right: Preparing to Manage Chaos with F.R.A.y Focus
Hosts: Dr. James Hawkins (“James”) and Dr. Ryan Rayna (“Ryan”)
Release Date: November 27, 2024

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Episode Overview

This episode is dedicated to helping therapists prepare themselves mentally and emotionally before sessions that might involve significant reactivity or chaos—particularly in emotionally charged couples therapy. Through the lens of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), hosts Dr. James Hawkins and Dr. Ryan Rayna introduce and illustrate the concept of F.R.A.y Focus—a practical approach to anticipating and managing moments of failed repair in relationships. They share personal anecdotes, clinical wisdom, and techniques to help therapists anchor their work in the places where couples get most stuck, effectively focusing on the “fray” (Failed Repair Attempts Yet again) rather than on the chaotic content or surface-level problems.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Challenge of Working with Highly Reactive Couples

• Therapist Reluctance: Dr. Ryan notes how talented therapists often shy away from couples work due to the unpredictable and intense nature of these sessions.

  • “Our communities need it, and it’s a huge issue ... Part of that is, we expect to walk into a room and have a similar experience as when you’re working with an individual ... And then you walk in the next hour and it’s a big old reactive cycle, and you’re like, man, I don’t like that feeling on my nervous system.” (01:00–01:50)

• Setting Expectations: Adjusting your mindset before stepping into the session can reduce therapist distress and help them maintain clarity.

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2. The Importance of “Trusting the Map” (The EFT Stages)

• Staying Oriented: Both hosts emphasize starting with the EFT “map” (the stages and steps/tasks of EFT) to avoid feeling lost or helpless.

  • “I have a tried and true process that helps me see and understand distress and give me an order ... Another caveat—we’re not just talking about the map, but about explicitly finding the distress.” (02:10–03:18)

• Stages Overview:

  • Stage 1: De-escalation
  • Stage 2: Restructuring the bond
  • Stage 3: Consolidation

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3. Introduction and Explanation of F.R.A.y Focus

• Definition:

  • F.R.A.y = Failed Repair Attempt Yet again (capitalize F, R, A; lowercase y)
  • "When we say fray, we’re saying failed repair attempts yet again." (06:52–06:59)

• Clinical Application: Focusing on the couple’s failed attempts to repair ruptures, rather than on the presenting issue.

  • “I want to set my work in the repair, not in the problem. And I can’t emphasize that enough ... it’s my biggest failure as a trainer and supervisor because I say it and say it and people don’t remember.” (08:55–09:22)

• Why This Focus? Surface content (like “the affair” or money) leads into unproductive chaos and drains the session. The heart of healing lies in examining and guiding the repair attempts.

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4. Practical Examples and Tactics

• Validating Effort:

  • “I know you all are working really hard ... despite your best efforts, it’s not working. Can you take me to the place when you’re trying your best and you see that it’s not working—how do you know it’s not working?” (04:19–05:31)

• Redirecting to the Process: Rather than pulling emotion from a story about an event, anchor the session in the process of failed repair.

  • “If a couple tells a story, right... and the EFT just goes and tries to pull emotion out of that story, then it’s just total chaos. … Set up my work in the repair, not in the problem.” (08:40–09:25)

• Using Neutral Language: Adapt wording to avoid taking sides on “what happened” and instead focus on the attempt to communicate and repair.

  • “The key move was—when you two try to have a conversation about this other ... even take all the meaning and emotion out for just a minute—when you two try to have a conversation about this other, how does it go? Who brings it up?” (15:10–16:40)

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5. Memorable Anecdotes & Quotes

Therapist Self-Preparation

• “When you’re walking down the hall, about to close the door, there’s some preparation that’s really helpful ... If you just follow the emotion and don’t have a focus, you’ll end up mediating or trying to resolve conflict.” (23:04–23:44)

F.R.A.y in Action (Live Demo Story - Ryan)

• Ryan shares a story of a high-conflict demo session with a couple disagreeing on whether an affair occurred. By naming “the other” instead of taking sides, and focusing on their failed repair attempts (not the allegations themselves), he was able to bring order to the chaos and create impactful moments.
  • “In the first three minutes, and boom, here it comes ... I had to trust my model ... I stayed very, very focused ... when you two try to have a slow conversation about this other, how does it go?” (12:36–16:40)

Emphasizing the Correct Target

• “The affair, the not affair, was not the issue. It’s the fact that we can’t have an attuned conversation about the other. Right. Once I can get there and get a trigger, I’m like, okay, now we got the affect assembly ... now we’re going for the attachment meaning ... now we’re going to see if we can have these missing conversations to redeem their bond.” (25:37–26:36)

• “There’s an order of change in EFT. That’s why you have to trust the map in stage one—you have to de-escalate the negative cycle. If you start trying to talk about solutions ... when there’s complete chaos, they will either harm each other with it, harm themselves, and they probably will club you over the head with it ...” (22:15–23:04)

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6. Practical Correction Loops

• When Losing Focus: If things get vague or general, the therapist can own the mistake, apologize, and reset with specificity.

  • “In a way, hey, y’all, I’m so sorry ... I just set that up way too big and too vague ... Can I get more specific for a moment right here in this office?” (19:03–19:57)

• Summarize and Validate:

  • “If they keep being thematic, intervention: summarize, summarize, an empathic summary that validates them and reset back at it ... Sometimes they need you to do that three times before they drop in.” (20:58–21:17)

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7. Navigating Cultural & Diversity Differences

• Process Focus Bridges Diversity:
  • “Even with the cultural difference, when I focus into that fray, it brings the process in so focused ... even family rules, expectations, so much diversity ... you start trying to fix all that, you can’t recover from that. It’s just going to take so much time.” (11:02–11:56)

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps & Speaker Attribution)

• Dr. Ryan Rayna:
  • “I want to set my work in the repair, not in the problem. … Set the focus in their failed repair attempts rather than the content problem.” (09:22–09:34)
• Dr. James Hawkins:
  • “If you start trying to talk about solutions ... when there’s complete chaos, they will either harm each other with it, harm themselves, and they probably will club you over the head with it.” (22:15–23:00)
• Dr. Ryan Rayna:
  • “Your relationship is as good at which you can repair, regardless of what else they’ve got going on ... what other cultures.” (10:29–11:02)
• Dr. James Hawkins:
  • “Even if EFT therapist says I’m a follow the emotion, what probably is also being the unset part is—I’m going to follow it and see where they break down in it ... And then they’re going to set focus. We just call that—they found the fray.” (23:44–24:20)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:46–02:10 — Discussing therapist anxieties and the challenge of working with couples
• 03:18–04:19 — Framing the session, validating pre-existing efforts
• 06:52–07:25 — Defining F.R.A.y and its relevance
• 08:40–09:34 — Focusing therapy on repair attempts, not problems
• 12:36–16:40 — Live demo story and tactics for high-reactivity sessions
• 19:03–20:03 — Examples of owning therapeutic mistakes and specificity reset
• 22:15–23:04 — The sequence of change in EFT, and why philosophy can hinder during chaos
• 24:20–25:23 — Teaching and using F.R.A.y Focus in therapist self-prep

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Episode Takeaways

• Focus on failed repair attempts (the fray) instead of getting lost in chaotic content or philosophical debates.
• Preparation matters: Trust the EFT map and set your mind on process, not problem-solving or mediating.
• Summarize and validate when things get too broad or unproductive—this gets clients “back in” the process.
• F.R.A.y Focus applies across relationship and cultural differences—it is a universal roadmap for getting unstuck.

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For EFT therapists and supervisors, this episode is a practical, heartfelt reminder: When chaos beckons, our job is not to fix the chaos, but to illuminate and sit with the patterns of disconnection—the F.R.A.y—where hope for real change lives.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, you're in your clinical practice. Maybe you've worked with an individual or two. You're walking down the hall or you're getting ready to let someone in a zoom room, and what are you saying to yourself? And specifically, are you ready for reactivity? What are you going to do when there's a lot of chaos?

[B]

Welcome to the Leading Edge in Emotionally Focused Therapy with your hosts, Dr. James Hawkins and Dr. Ryan Rayna. EFT is a dynamic model that humbles even the most seasoned therapists. Together, we want to come alongside you as you continually push the leading edge of your understanding and application of this wonderful model developed by Dr. Sue Johnson.

[A]

You know, one of my missions and one of the things that kind of breaks my heart having hired a lot of therapists in the last 13, 14 years, I'm a. I'm one of the leaders of a clinic, in addition to the other hats I wear, is when really, really talented people refuse to work with couples. And that's okay. There's nothing, not a thing in the world wrong with doing other good work, but our communities need it, and it's a huge issue. Especially, you know, you're really experienced, talented, warm people. And I do think part of that is exactly the. The series that you've come up with here. I think there's. They can't help, but I think we, sometimes we, all of us, can't help but expect to walk into a room and have a similar experience as when you're working with an individual who's motivated and curious and relatively safe with you. And then you walk in the next hour and it's a big old reactive cycle, and you're like, man, I don't like that feeling on my nervous system. But you can get out in front of that some. If you can. If you can get out in front of adjusting your expectations, if you understand, hey, this is about to be this kind of game, so to speak, that's different than this kind of thing, then I think it doesn't wear on you so heavily. So love that you came up with this series, James, and, you know, you wanted to talk about trusting the map and going towards the fray. Tell me more about how you came up with that as an idea.

[C]

Yeah. So once again thinking about, how do we help join you so that way you're not going in that session completely alone, completely blank. And so for me, maybe this is speaking to my heart, you know, knowing the research on the map and how sue and the team developed the map, it's like I have something going to what you're saying like this reactive cycles. I'm not going in completely blank and I'm not going in helpless. I have a tried and true process that helps me see and understand distress. And give me an order like, we've done a podcast episode on this about the order of change and to know that. But then another caveat we've added into. In a way of not just the map, that which. When I say the map, everybody, I'm talking about the stages and steps of eft.

[A]

Like the old school. The old school, yes, that's right.

[C]

Stage one, de escalation. Stage two, restructuring the bond. Stage three, consolidation. To be able to know there's different stages and within each stage there are. I like to say, instead of steps, I was talking. I remember talking to sue about this before she passed of thinking of them as tasks in each stage that we do repetitively over and over to help create that. Those changes in each stage.

[A]

That's it.

[C]

But then. But what about going. As you go into the session, not only do you have your map, but can you find the distress? That's why sue built this map, is to help find and join people in distress and walk them through these stages to where they can have this new sense of a secure, positive cycle. And so today we're going to talk about that is how do you go into session and find the fray to get focused.

[A]

Yep. Yeah, let's do it. Let me say this just before we get started then, on that. I want to say thank you for handling reactive couples. I know many times I'll be in a decent space and a comment's made and I can feel electricity in my torso going, oof, this is about to go bad, you know, because once I've given someone maybe a little too much space, now their partner is going to have to heard no matter what I do. And here it comes. So I want to say thank you for giving of your energy forgiven of what that takes out of your body to hang in there with folks and jumping in that fray because it's not easy.

[C]

That's right. And so once again, Ryan and I, we keep saying this term fray, and it's a. It's a term to describe something you probably already understood. It's just what we're trying to do. We just heard George say this on another training. We're just trying to take something that's probably been happening unconsciously for you and just make it super conscious and super explicit. And specifically, what we're saying is, matter of fact, I want to say it this way because I want to maybe you help me out. This is how I set up a session yesterday. I knew it was going to be rough. It's a new couple that I just started with, but you can feel their reactivity. It is tense. It is strong. And so coming in, I said, hey, I know this is probably. This is probably only our second session back together. So last week you helped me kind of get a look at the cycle a little bit. But today I need to get really clear that I know that you all are working really hard. Like, you didn't just start working on this relationship only when you came to me. You've already been trying your best to not let that cycle get the best of you. But however, despite your best efforts, is not working. And that makes you leaves you feeling discouraged and hopeless. Can you take me to the place when you're trying your best and you see that it's not working, how do you know it's not working?

[A]

And.

[C]

And then I want to see when, not only when it. That it's not working. What do you do when it's not working? So we can slow that process down.

[A]

Yeah, I like it.

[C]

Is that getting towards the fray?

[A]

I think it's towards it. Yeah. I mean, I think it depends on the level of chaos. If the chaos is not that bad or you're that good, you can just. George, it. He just starts a session with what's happening between you two.

[C]

That's right.

[A]

Right. And again, he's. He doesn't even know any other models. I'm just jealous of that. Right. Cause he's so clear. Right. And that's a positive thing, not a negative thing. And then I think that's a little bit more of like, hey, we're gonna move it towards a focus.

[C]

That's right.

[A]

I love the validation. You are trying your best. Right. It's easy for therapists to want to give advice. And remember, advice. Advice implies you're not trying very hard or you lack something that I have, which is why it doesn't tend to be a very good intervention, particularly for second order stuckness. So I like that. But if there's a lot of chaos, then we got to find some. Some. Some words, some ways to cut through this and get us a good place to start.

[C]

I like that.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

You want to go down that road then?

[A]

Sure. I mean, we were just talking before jumping on here about. About. I'm trying to think where the fray acronym came from. Exactly. Now I can't remember.

[C]

So let me make sure in case you haven't heard it on episode. When we say fray, we were saying failed repair attempts yet again.

[A]

Yeah, small Y, small Y, capital, everything else fra capitalize and then Y, failed repair attempt yet again. So defining what that means, it doesn't matter what a couple's going through in the world. This is hard for us as therapists because we have to set aside some of our wonderful relationship philosophy and even research. Because if I believe a relationship should look like X, Y or Z, and let's be honest with you, everyone listening to this has theories about, you know, partners should do this, partners should do that, you know, positivity, negativity, you know, empathy, affection, all these wonderful ideas. We have to set that, set that at the door. To be able to work with the hardest couples in the world, that's good because we have to stay processed and all that is normative and top down, first order. So no matter what happens, think about the worst possible relationship stuff in the world. No matter what happens, if the couple can come back and have an attuned repair, it is not a clinical problem, it's a fact. So it's so easy to want to go up and set your tempo, your affect assembly, or just start. What I think a lot of eft get caught doing is that as a couple tells a story, right? And it's just a story, it's a linear, blame oriented thing and the eft just goes and tries to pull emotion out of that story, then it's just total chaos. So what we're trying to say is when someone brings in a chronic issue, when someone brings in a recent fight or some big event, I want to be with you with summaries. That sounds really hard. Your side of this is. This makes sense. Summarize enough where your body says, okay, Ryan, here's me. Then I want to go to the partner and summarize with that person again. But then the cut through language is to say, when you two try to talk about chronic issue, tell me how your conversation goes, right? And then I want to set up my work in the repair, not in the problem. And I can't emphasize that enough. And I'll just tell you, it's my biggest failure as a trainer and supervisor because I say it and say it and say it and people don't remember. And then I ask myself, well, what makes you remember, Ryan? I'm like, my love, my not love language, my fit, my learning language kicks in, which is failure and humiliation for years.

[C]

I want to go back to that line. That was a good one. I want to set my focus in their failed repair attempts rather than the content problem. Yes, I added some words. Is that absolutely okay?

[A]

Because here's why. Some of it's just time. If you got a 16 hour intensive like I do sometimes, fine, let them vent for an hour and a half. It's not going to do any good. What you're going to find is they're going to flood a lot. But that's okay if you want, if you can rebound from that. But if you're working on a 50 to 60 minute session and you're going to set up emotion, pull emotion out of how someone feels about money, you better be good, you better be really good and you better be in your second decade and of this. And you can, you can. I've seen Gail Palmer do none of this focus stuff. I've also seen her do really focus sessions when, when, when the cycle got tough.

[C]

But I might want to change the name of this, but that's a great one though, is as you're going into session say, how do I today help me to be able to set my focus in their inability to repair versus setting my focus in the problem, which will take us too long probably.

[A]

Absolutely.

[C]

That's a good one.

[A]

Yeah. And you're walking down the hall. Speaking of getting your mind right, what is this relationship walking next to me? Well, it's as good as they can repair. Like that's it. And I hate to sound so non humanistic, but that is the status of their bond. You know, safe, unsafe, close, not close. They're as good as they can repair regardless of what else they got going on. What other cultures.

[C]

That's right.

[A]

Whether they're, you know, same sex, different sex, even parent, child. I mean there's so many forms of diversity. Your relationship is as good at which you can repair.

[C]

And I feel like even because the couple I'm mentioning, like there is some cultural difference. So there's so much. But even this like it, even with the cultural difference, it's still like when I focus into that fray, it like brings the process in so focused in a way to where even the cultural part we begin to like, you know, one person might like, well, I'm used to just kind of speaking whatever is on my mind and just saying it. Another person's like, whoa, I can't do that. I like from where I'm from, only one person talks at a time and you wait till they completely finish and then it's like we get into a whole battle there even.

[A]

I love that because we think about culture and diversity, and we think about two or three things, but there's really thousands, 100% family rules, family expectations. There's so much diversity out there. Right. And you start trying to fix all that. You bring your philosophy of whether how much truth you should speak. You're done. You're done. You can't recover from that. It's just going to take so much time.

[C]

All right, so let's take a commercial break and we'll be right back.

[A]

Foreign.

[C]

Do you like the content that you're hearing on this podcast? Well, we invite you to join us on success and vulnerability.com along with George Fowler and other EFT therapists and supervisors, where you get to get more thorough insight into these concepts and actually get to see it done. Once again, join us on successandvulnerability.com so let's bring it in. Let's make it a little bit more felt, then we'll get practical. So, Ryan, you were telling me a good story that, like, helped reinforce this.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Can you share that story?

[A]

Yeah, I was just gonna go back one step. It's interesting since we've been teaching this for a, for a couple years, participants just do not get it. And, and again, I don't blame them. I blame me. Maybe I'll get better someday, but my fellow trainers love it. I got people, fellow trainers contact me from Europe and, and George, who doesn't always listen to anything we do, is like, man, he uses Frey all the time. I've been to three or four trainings. He's using it regularly. And of course, people like, what does that mean? What's that mean? So people chat me today in the training I was in with Georgia. What's framing? People don't get it. Right. So I'm hoping that I say people don't get enough times that I jinx it or something. Yeah. So I think I started using that term coming back from old systems classes is where the. Where I could have pulled the term. But the reinforcing thing for me really quickly with this story was doing a live demo a while back and I was working with a community I wasn't familiar with and they weren't familiar with eft, which was a lesson for me. So for one thing, appreciate iseft because some of those structures that people don't like sometimes are they. There's a reason they're there, and you learn to appreciate it when you don't have them. And so anyway, I went in with this group and they said no. Right. So they had all Kinds of expectations. I'm like, hold on, hold on. We can't do that. We have to do this first. And we're resetting this. And when the life came up, they're like, hey, I got a life. And I got a little. I got a little maybe a little cocky, maybe, because years ago, I'm like, careful who you pick. And I'm like, anxious. And, you know, anxious is not a bad thing. You know, I was a little too comfortable. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll talk through it, you know, and an hour before they're going to show up, I'm like, tell me about this. And I'm like, oh, right. And so, first of all, the lady who's wonderful, she doesn't know, she's like, I brought you my hardest couple. Tons of chaos, tons of pain. And a lot of the people in the group had also seen them. So people in the chat box going, oh, man, this is going to be good. Like, what have I done? Felt like walking out in the. What's the gladiator arena about to be eaten by something. But anyway, in the telling of this, a kind of a contraindicator comes up and eft has a loose relationship with that. It's not an absolute no, but. But there's probably an emotional affair going on, and. And they don't agree on whether or not it's affair. An affair. And I almost pulled the plug. I think the local therapists, you know, there's a lot going on, and. And so anyway, I'm like, all right, let's give it a run. But hoping that it wouldn't come up. I'm hoping we could just get into the. To the cycle. I could show some stage one eft, you know, pull an enactment at least out of a hat and go on with life. And so. But we're in the first three minutes, and boom, here it comes. The couple's in a fight over. Over whether or not it is an affair, so to speak. And. And there's sort of contempt going back and forth. And I'm like, oh, boy, here we go. So I had to trust my model. And so I reflect, reflect, summarize, summarize, and go right into. Hey, when you two try to have a conversation about other. That was a key thing right there, by the way, because if I would have used the word affair, one person calls it an affair, one person doesn't. So other was a nice, neutral landing zone. But anyway, I stayed very, very focused on that, and it was huge. The session went well. It Was hard. You know, it wasn't like a huge breakthrough but. But a series of small enactments and some raw emotion that maybe hadn't been around, but it sat on that move, which is when you two try to have us slow this down for me, even take all the meaning and emotion out for just a minute. When you two try to have a conversation about this other. How does it go? Who brings it up? You know, and they ran through five or six steps and where they got stuck. And the offendee experienced the partner as defensive. That was a middle of her telling of the, of the affair, whatever we're going to call that thing. And that, that to me is like, all right, that's where I can set up my first affect assembly. I can go get a trigger right there which I had to reset five or six times by the way to get it at the level I want it to be. And next thing you know, the session flowed. If I hadn't done that, it would have been endless chaos if I just pulled out emotion about the other. I mean even if I got there, it was, it would not have been focused enough to work in a 50 minute session.

[C]

Wow. So like this. Let me put together the two things you said. So set the. So set the focus in their failed repair attempt.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And the trigger you're going to go for there is the trigger that says. That tells the person my attempt to repair with you isn't working. Is that right?

[A]

Say that again.

[C]

Is the trigger that you're going to pull out of the fray to get the phrase like. And how do you know it's not working despite your best efforts? What do you noticed in the relationship that indicates that it's not working?

[A]

Yes. You're blending your language with mine right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fine.

[C]

What's your language? No, make sure I get it.

[A]

No, that's. That's great. That's great. I just. What I'm looking for is again is not all the pain of, of the.

[C]

That's right.

[A]

Affair or non affair. That's a trap. And actually we're going to get to that pain, but we're going to make that pain about their relationship and not about what happened six months ago. Six years ago, 60 years ago. Right. So I mean her body in that, in this instance she doesn't want to talk about either. We want to move on, but she can. And so, so then she. It hurts enough that she has to come together and hoping that when she sends over a conversation she's looking for what we're all looking for, which is attunement and mirror neurons and someone to come towards this with. With empathy and caregiving system and all those fancy terms for what is actually very simple. And. And she doesn't see that. And she sees defensiveness. And then she does this, and that person does that and the partner does this. And then she said. And then she said, we don't talk about it oftentimes for weeks. Okay, so we know then that their. Their intimacy is sealed off.

[C]

That's right.

[A]

Right. So what? But again, we're going to go right into that conversation, her perception of it. And I want to get into what she sees that says we can't repair. And then there's a really big transition coming after the fray, which we have to get it out of that hypothetical story into the here and now in the room.

[C]

That's it.

[A]

And then we're doing eft.

[C]

And can I go. I want to talk about when I've made the mistake and not had that kind of focus. And then you go start. You start trying to grab the emotion. And I've done that before. And then they go way off. And it's like, oh, well, this. And, you know, this. And this nest. I'm like, this is my repair attempt on that one. In a way. Hey, y', all, I'm so sorry. Like that. I just set that up way too big and too vague. Like, of course this is a painful thing for you, all this. Whatever the other or the betrayal. Can I get more specific for a moment right here in this office, that when you try and even address the other, you don't have success. Your best efforts get. I'm still in rhyme language, but I'll do. Your best efforts get turned upside down on its head. Both of you want this to be better, but all of your attempts to make it better. So can I stay with that for a moment? When you try to make this process better.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And it does like. And it's not working.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Can I see what it looks like for you to. There. That's how I like when it's too big in general to bring it back again.

[A]

So anyway, again, I think. I think that's going to work a lot of the time. I think if. I don't know if that would have worked with this couple just because it's so hot. So I needed one more level of explicitness. Okay. When you two try to have a conversation about X, which you could also add when you're doing your best to have a conversation that heals this that's. So it has to be about that, that, that specific content. Right.

[C]

Y' all pay. That's good language because that's where they are when you try to heal from this other or this affair. Xyz, name it xyz, Name it. I need to see what's getting in the way of your ability to repair what's getting in the way of that.

[A]

Yeah. And even then sometimes they go thematic in a story, which anytime that happens, I'm going to summarize, summarize, bring it back. Right. So sometimes it's helpful to say who brings it up. That sometimes is, is tactical enough to go, oh, okay, we're talking. Yeah.

[C]

And I hope y' all caught what Ryan just gave you. And even we're not saying like, if you ask the right question, they're gonna always do the right thing. But even if they keep being thematic, look at what he just gave you. Intervention. Summarize, summarize. An empathic summary.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

That validates them and reset back at it.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Sometimes they might need you to do that three times before they drop in.

[A]

Yeah. And so once we had the trigger, which is the perception from the offend e from the offender, according to her. Yeah. Then it's just, it's just regular eft. Like we're blocked everywhere and there's a block here and a block there. But, you know, there's, you know, secondary kind of experiences being shown, primary being hidden. But my body can relax into that. But in the chaos of that early moment, like we would have gotten philosophical on what's an affair, what's not affair, what's a betrayal. You know, can, can you know, in hetero, hetero people, can you have same opposite gender friends? Like you know, this philosophical. 100 light years away and you're going to be out of time.

[C]

And that's why I don't want to set my focus.

[A]

No, you can't recover because any, any opinion you have on those matters is probably harmful in that moment.

[C]

That's right.

[A]

Even if it's a nice research based opinion, it had nothing to do with them. It's. That's me trying to enforce a culture on them.

[C]

That's right. And for all of you, if you're listening, so we're saying this because there is an order of change in eft. That's why you have to trust the map in stage one. You have to de. Escalate the negative cycle. If you start trying to talk about solutions and give them philosophical understanding when there's complete chaos, they will either Harm each other with it, harm themselves, and they probably will club you over the head with it. As a therapist in eft, though, once we've calmed that down and we can form a positive cycle, stage three, we'll do that kind of stuff all day long. So, okay, so let's talk about it. Like, so how do you decide who can be a part of your relationship and how to have friendships with people of same or opposite gender? You can do that in stage three. There's order to it. Yeah, but we're not completely saying, like, we'll never do that. It's just not the time.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

If they're in chaos, we know what's going to happen if we try and have that conversation.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And I think going back to the topic of the series again, when you're walking down the hall, when you're about to close the door, you know, when you're about to have them enter the room as a couple, there's some preparation that's really helpful here because if you're going to just go, like, I'm just going to go have conversation with people. I'm just going to follow the emotion. I mean, follow the emotion is not a bad thought. If you know EFT like the back of your hand and all. And if all your moves are instinctually eft, fine. But that's not true for many of us because most of us are informed by a linear culture. And if you don't have some idea of what we're going to focus on, you're going to end up mediating or trying to. To resolve conflict or teaching skills.

[C]

That's right. And even if eft, you know, therapist says I'm a follow the motion, what probably is also being the unset part is I'm going to follow it and see where the, where they break down in it. So, like, they might say, I'm going to follow the emotion. They grab sadness, and the EFT therapist might keep priming and working with sadness and assembling sadness. And then they're going to eventually find out, like, can they talk about it and can you respond to it? And if it breaks down, then they're going to say, oh, so I followed that motion and it showed me where your process breaks down. And then they're going to set focus. We just. We just call that they found the fray.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

They found where their attempts to solve it fail over and over.

[A]

Blocked. Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And so I think for. I think it's really important for all of us to have some kind of deconstructed thought or two. You know, it's like golf. They say you can. You can have one or maybe one and a half thoughts as you're about to swing. If you have a third thought, it's going in the woods. And I think the EFT is like that too. So for some people, follow the emotion. It's not necessarily. That's all they're doing. It just means that's all I'm going to choose to think about that. For other people, it's. I'm just going to be with people. Right. Really general things, but really beautiful things. And once again, if you've been doing this for a long time and your organic instincts are always going to keep you on the tango, then those are probably good. But if you're like the rest of us, you know, who are. Who are learning, it's like, Frey might not be a bad thought as you're walking down the hall. Not necessarily in session all the time, but down the hall, I'm like, I wonder where their fray is today. Like, where's. Where is the status of their strength, their tolerance window where they can and where they can't repair. I know that's where they need me.

[C]

That's good. And if you try and go there and they can't handle it, Ryan gave the kind of the corrective move there. Just Summarize, give that empathic summary and validate. And reset the focus again.

[A]

Yep.

[C]

Wow, that's very clean.

[A]

Yep. So I just think about that life and what it taught me. Like, it marks me in my brain because I can trust it now. Right. This is exactly what our couples need is corrective experience. So I'm like, man, this is not typically what we would want in alive. I'm glad it happened now. I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful for the local group and the local therapists who are wonderful. I hope that didn't come across as critical. But typically, you don't want a contraindicator like that for a live demonstration. But it was good for me to go, okay, even in this situation, we've got to shrink this down to a workable space. Because the affair, the not affair, was not the issue. It's the fact that we can't have an attuned conversation about the other. Right. And once I can get there and get a trigger, I'm like, okay, now we got the affect assembly. Now we're going for, you know, the. The attachment meaning and then the emotion. Now we're going to see if we can have these missing conversations to redeem their bond.

[C]

Man. Thanks, Ryan. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for that community. You got to work. Thank you for them and their willingness to lean in and get trained and.

[A]

Talk about hard things.

[C]

Exactly. And not go run away from something that's hard.

[A]

That's right. That's right. That's courage.

[C]

Yeah. And thank you, you all. Thank you. I know Ryan did his. Thank you. Thank you for what you're doing, you know, and I'm sure you know, you know, right now as we re record this, it's around the holiday season, depending on where you are, what culture, kind of perspective. But just want to say thank you for helping your clients get ready for this and how they're going to go home and face some. Some different parts of their story. Just thank you for what you do. Yeah. All right. Have a good day, y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

Thank you for listening. We hope this experience helps you push the leading edge in your work to help people connect with themselves and with each other. Please subscribe to our podcast and leave us a five star review. You can contact us at pushtheleadingedgemail.com and you can follow us on our Facebook page at Push the leading Edge. You can follow Ryan on Facebook at Ryan Rayner Professional training and on his website, RyanRenatraining.com you can follow James on Facebook and Instagram at Doc Hawk LPC. You can also check out his website, dochawklpc.com.