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Matt Wade
Why have I asked my electrician I
Savannah
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Matt Wade
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Savannah
Welcome back to this week's episode of Unlocked. I am super excited for today's episode because I have someone on who has had just a personal impact on my life and what better thing to do than to kind of share it with the world? So. Matt Wade, welcome.
Matt Wade
Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.
Savannah
I am so happy you're here.
Matt Wade
Yeah. We're going to have a good time.
Savannah
I know you have. You know, we've. How long have we known each other?
Matt Wade
Probably 10 or 11 years.
Savannah
Yeah. Right. Exactly.
Matt Wade
Yeah.
Savannah
Oh, shoot. We did. Yes. I always forget about the first.
Matt Wade
Right.
Savannah
First encounter. Yeah. So it's. You just. It's crazy how the world works. We met forever ago and then we just keep circling back around. Keep circling back around and just in different phases of life.
Matt Wade
That's right.
Savannah
You know, you are kind of there for me during some really shitty moments.
Matt Wade
Oh, thank you.
Savannah
And definitely helped me get through it and internalize everything and just figure it out.
Matt Wade
Sure.
Savannah
But you also came out with a book which is called Secure 90 Days to a More Connected Relationship.
Matt Wade
Yes.
Savannah
And I love this. I love anything that. Self help, of course. But I thought too, what was really interesting and unique about the book is you open it up with a very raw moment in your own marriage.
Matt Wade
Yeah. You know, I'm an expert on one thing, and that is my marriage.
Savannah
If you're going to be an expert on anything, that's the thing to be an expert on.
Matt Wade
Yeah. We start out talking about really kind of how we hit a wall about 10 or 11 years ago, probably 12 years ago now. It's kind of getting close to that time frame. And do you want me to go into that now? Yeah, sure. So, you know, there's times we have a good way of imploding our marriages. And I. I was kind of. We were in couples therapy and didn't know why. We couldn't really make headway.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
It's kind of like we were renovating the upstairs, but there was a bomb in the basement and I lit that bomb and imploded my marriage. And. Yeah. So when, when everything kind of happened, when the smoke cleared, we were left with all this rubble and we had some hard decisions to make. I remember us sitting on the edge of the bed crying, deciding which holidays the kids were going to be with who. And I don't know what happened, but something along in that time frame, I just said, what if we make it? What if we make another go at it? What if we just give it one more shot? And Amber was like, I just don't know.
Savannah
But she's an angel. I love her.
Matt Wade
Is she not unbelievable?
Savannah
She is the most unbelievable. I love her.
Matt Wade
She's really remarkable human being. Yeah. She said, I don't know. And then we kind of went back and forth about this over the next couple of weeks and found. Found ourselves back in therapy and realizing that we wanted to work everything out. And so we committed to the long arduous process of couples therapy. And that was about a two and a half year process of going every week without missing a week.
Savannah
Wow.
Matt Wade
It was awful.
Savannah
It was awful.
Matt Wade
It was. It was hell.
Savannah
And why do you say that?
Matt Wade
Because you're having to face yourself. Therapy is where you go to meet yourself. This is not where you go to try to just work out a problem in your marriage. This is where you go to meet those dark shadow places.
Savannah
And I think it's probably the most infuriating thing because A lot of. I feel like a lot of people go into therapy thinking, all right, I'm gonna go in here, but by the end of this hour, the end of this day, I'm gonna have an answer for everything.
Matt Wade
Oh, yeah? Yeah. And the only answer, really, that you're going to come out with is what else you have to work on. This is, though, I've got another thing, and I'm talking about intrapersonal work, the work that you do inside of self. Right. And so I think I went in and met myself there, and I didn't like what I. What I found.
Savannah
And when you were in that process, was there a sense of ego involved that maybe kept you from exposing all the things about you that you knew maybe were the downfall of what was happening?
Matt Wade
Yeah, ego, sure. Mainly it was childhood wounding that was keeping that. That ego or that. That part of me protecting and hiding those secrets.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
Right. It's like, yeah, we have these protectors. Right. And these protectors kind of keep that stuff at bay.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
Because it says to us, if you let that be seen, you're not going to be accepted. You're not going to belong anymore. And so we keep that stuff hidden. We protect that stuff. And it's all for good reason. The protectors do their job very, very well.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
The issue is we were not our authentic self, and we can't show up and be authentic when we have all that stuff kind of hidden in the shadows of our lives. So ego, whatever it might have been, I was definitely protect. Protecting something.
Savannah
Yeah. And so you said two and a half years you guys were in therapy.
Matt Wade
Yeah, it was three years total because. Two and a half. We had our couple's therapists. She had her own therapist, and I had my own therapist. So we were going to therapy three times a week. If you look at her going, me going, and then us going as a
Savannah
couple, so that takes true commitment and showing up when maybe you don't feel like it.
Matt Wade
And I didn't feel like it. She was exhausted. I was exhausted. But I think at the end of yourself is where you meet yourself. And so we were. We were at the end of ourselves. And so it's what we had to do.
Savannah
Wow. And when did you see a turning point?
Matt Wade
I was probably two years in before. Well, I'll tell you this. The turning point is when there's no more secrets.
Savannah
Mm.
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Matt Wade
The turning point is when there's no more secrets, when you can show up authentically and say, here's all of my shit.
Savannah
Yeah. And to. There is Sorry.
Matt Wade
I don't know if I could say that.
Savannah
Oh, you can say it. Trust me. There. You know, and I think you've said this. Is. There is no intimacy with secrecy.
Matt Wade
There is no intimacy where there's secrecy. No. Because the issue when we run into secrecy is that now I'm creating distance between me and the person that I say that I love the most.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
I'm creating major distance because of the secrets that I have in my life. Yeah.
Savannah
And that's the thing. I feel like so many people are ashamed to maybe tell that secret. Right. I mean, I. I will sit and say I am. No, you know, I am not perfect like anyone else. I've gone through a situation like this to where I have held secrets.
Matt Wade
Sure.
Savannah
And you feel like you're drowning, and it's so hard in your mind to kind of interpret things when you're like, I love this person with all my heart, but I'm being held hostage by certain things over here.
Matt Wade
Right.
Savannah
That I had to do, but I didn't want to do that I did want to do. You know, there's this whole mind game. And how do you work through that?
Matt Wade
Yeah. I think we have to come to a place where, if we're talking about secrets, if we're talking about coming clean, if we're talking about being very authentic with ourselves, we have to let go of control. Yeah.
Savannah
We talked about this one.
Matt Wade
We have our friend Pete.
Savannah
Yes.
Matt Wade
Says one of the greatest statements that I've ever heard is the greatest illusion of our life is that we're in control of anything. That's the greatest illusion, right?
Savannah
Yeah. We're in control of nothing.
Matt Wade
Nothing whatsoever. No. And so letting go and letting go of control of outcomes, I cannot hold on to the outcome because if I try to control them, and now I'm just manipulating something.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
That's not authentic.
Savannah
No. And that doesn't lead to a healthy relationship. Friendship, relationship, marriage, any kind.
Matt Wade
You're exactly right.
Savannah
Wow.
Matt Wade
Yeah.
Savannah
Oh, you always throw some truth bombs out there. That I'm like, oh, that. That is accurate. And so when in your life, like, what did. Was there a point to where it was, like, telling in your mind? You thought, all right, if I tell the truth, it's going to cost me this, So I can't tell the truth, but I have to tell the truth to be free. Yeah. And so how do you encourage people who are in a place like that of like, I know I need to tell the truth, but I may lose the very thing that I was trying to protect. I mean, there's so many times that I have heard about, you know, affairs or whatever and they're like, you know, let's say you stop it, right? But you're still holding that secret because you're still trying to protect the person that you love, right? Because you don't want them to find out. But there's also a sense of self protection. You know, it just gets messy.
Matt Wade
It gets very messy. Let me say it like this. Whatever I hold in my body will leak out. So whatever secret I hold, whatever pain that I'm clutching, trauma leaks. Whether you self impose that trauma or whether that happens to you, it's going to leak out on someone. And so truth will come out regardless if you want it to or not. It's eventually going to run your ass down.
Savannah
That is so true. Whether it's anger, anxiety, whatever it may
Matt Wade
be, it doesn't have to be an affair. It can be anything. We used to use a nomenclature like big T trauma or little T trauma. Now we just say trauma. It's just trauma. Yeah, trauma is trauma. It's all going to leak out. So whether I face it now or face it later, I will have to face it. And I'm either going to face it in my relationship or I'm going to face it in my own body. Because my body will tell on me.
Savannah
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Savannah
And when you're talking about trauma because you know we're in this world now to where people I like to say my generation has screwed up a lot of stuff, okay? But one of the things that we, I believe we have done pretty well is like normalizing that it's okay to not be okay.
Matt Wade
Absolutely.
Savannah
Therapy is cool. Go do therapy. Go get help. But also, in the midst of this whole pro therapy movement, you have on another side, people being like, oh, no, you can't trauma bond. You can't do this, you can't do that. But if you're talking about your traumas, you know, how do you differentiate between maybe discussing your traumas with your partner versus trauma bonding?
Matt Wade
I have to pay attention to what happens in my body when I'm talking to them. So I've got to pay attention to what happens in here. Am I getting activated? Am I getting drawn to them because of their trauma? Am I attracted to this? Am I drawn to this like a moth to a flame? Then I have to be very, very careful that that's what is happening. So in other words, even when you're this. And this happens tremendously in new relationships, in new relationships, we get all the feels, we get all this excitement, we get all this energy. And what we don't realize is we're probably not finding our partner. We're probably just finding our pattern. Oh, yeah. We're probably just bumping into our pattern. Because if this thing is coming alive in me, there's a reason. See, I don't need anybody. Activate me. I need you to calm my nervous system.
Savannah
But is there a way to be with someone? Because it's like I say in relationship, right? Like, I'm sorry, but I don't want to be with somebody that had this picture perfect childhood and life.
Matt Wade
Please. No, no.
Savannah
Like, I. I just can't do it because I've gone through so much trauma in my life. So it is more appealing and settling to have someone who's gone through some shit in their life.
Matt Wade
Yeah, of course. And I think it's great to know that you've been through something.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
But how did you recover?
Savannah
The recovery is what matters.
Matt Wade
Did you heal? Did you repair the rip?
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Matt Wade
Did you repair the rip? Have you done that?
Savannah
Do you see what I'm doing here?
Matt Wade
I know exactly what we're doing.
Savannah
I'm talking you into, like, bonding is really not a thing.
Matt Wade
I know exactly where we're going. Yeah, that's.
Savannah
That's what I'm doing. I have a way.
Matt Wade
It is definitely a thing.
Savannah
Like what. What would you say is, like, the most severe case of, like, trauma bonding?
Matt Wade
Oh, that is a good question. So I'm. Oh, my gosh, you're putting me on the spot with that one. That's okay. Let me look at it through an attachment lens for just a moment.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
Okay. Generally when we have somebody with a very wounded attachment, deeply wounded attachment, meaning their caregiver system did not give them what they needed to feel accessible, responsive, and engaged with in their life. Okay. Chances are there's going to be deep trauma that runs like an undercurrent in their life and it's going to get activated big time in their romantic relationships. And so I think ultimately somebody who has a deeply wounded attachment system that is going to probably be more, I guess, severe, if that's the right word in those things.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
I don't know that I answered your question, but that's the best that I've got for.
Savannah
That's the message you got. I did put you on the spot. Okay.
Matt Wade
That's okay. You can.
Savannah
But you did. You just mentioned attachment styles. Right. So in a relationship, in a marriage, if you have two avoidance or two anxious partners, like, does that work?
Matt Wade
No, no, not for long term. So now people can immediately start emailing you about this and. And dming me. Right?
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
And saying that's not true because me and my partner, we're both anxious. Right. And I'm gonna go, great. How's that working for you?
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
Because generally you're going to see people in a relationship, one person is going to have an anxious attachment and what's going to have an avoided attachment? Because opposites. What?
Savannah
Opposites attract.
Matt Wade
They attract every single time.
Savannah
Well, yeah, I think if I had another like me, I mean, you would kill. It'd be a nuclear bomb.
Matt Wade
It would be a nuclear bomb.
Savannah
It would literally be a nuclear bomb.
Matt Wade
Yes. Like, you have two people that are avoidant, they would never talk, and they grow cold and distant from each other.
Savannah
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Matt Wade
Sure.
Savannah
It's all about you and maybe someone that is abusing you and you're bonding over that trauma.
Matt Wade
Right.
Savannah
Which is a definition of it for sure.
Matt Wade
Yeah.
Savannah
But I feel like trauma bonding can also be like we've said two unhealthy people.
Matt Wade
Yeah. Particularly if we're abusing each other.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
Right. If it were in this cycle of abuse, then that is happening in that cycle of abuse. Of course. Yeah.
Savannah
And what would you, how would you label abuse? Because I think a lot of people, when they hear the word abuse, they immediately think physical.
Matt Wade
That's right. Yeah.
Savannah
And there are so many different ways that you can be abused in a relationship and not even really acknowledge that that's what it is.
Matt Wade
Yeah, that's a great question. So abuse is going to show up in all kinds of forms. It's going to show up through neglect, emotional withholding, whenever I refuse to meet your needs. So abuse has so many different forms. Right. It's not just the physical thing. It shows up through sexual behavior. So, yeah, all sorts of things.
Savannah
Yeah. And when you get in a. If you're in a marriage or someone's in a marriage right now or a relationship, and they're like, you know, I. My partner is withholding, you know, whether it's to punish, hey, you didn't do this for me, so I'm not going to do that for you. How do you break that cycle?
Matt Wade
Yeah. So this is going to sound like a cliche answer. Okay, sorry. At the end of the day, those cycles have to be broken through intense therapy. They just do. If you could do it yourself, you would have already done it.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
But you have to have someone to help you co regulate through that. Someone to help you kind of manage that relationship. And honestly, at that point, we've got to explore power and control dynamics. We've got to figure out. And there's a whole wheel on the power and control wheel, we've got to figure out is this relationship even viable with that kind of behavior going on?
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
Yeah.
Savannah
And when you're doing your sessions with your clients and your couples, have there, has there been a time to. Where. All right, first session they leave and you're like, oh shit, this is just a complete disaster.
Matt Wade
Yeah.
Savannah
And then by the end of six months, a year, however long, you're looking at a totally different couple.
Matt Wade
Absolutely. And that depends on the work that they put in. It depends on how they decide to show up in the room.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
It depends on the level of vulnerability they're willing to kind of show up with each other. Right. I mean, if we look at the word vulnerability, the word vulnerable in Latin means wound. So it's this idea that I'm risking getting wounded by the person that I love the most.
Savannah
And that's.
Matt Wade
And it requires vulnerability though, to heal. It requires vulnerability to connect. So, yeah, I mean, I see couples that, that I work with that come in and you know, generally couples that I work with are staying with me for four days at a time. So they're not, they're not doing weekly 50 minute sessions anymore. We're doing intensives. Well, so we're seeing them.
Savannah
You need that breakthrough, right.
Matt Wade
You gotta have it.
Savannah
What would you say is your reasoning for. For a more long term intensive session for four days to a week versus, hey, we're going to meet once a week.
Matt Wade
Yeah. It's kind of like compound interest. Right. It's better if I have compound interest than simple interest or whatever. However, the math works on that. Right. It's better to have compound interest. And it's kind of like that with intensives. We're able to have so much momentum in those days that you get so much more work done and it's concentrated and there's the whole aspect of the digital detox. You don't have your phones, you don't have an app, Apple Watch, you don't have an iPad.
Savannah
Well, that's all out of the room because you do. You do intensives out on site.
Matt Wade
Yes.
Savannah
And I have been to. On site. I love on site. And it takes a minute to break through.
Matt Wade
Yes.
Savannah
You know, there's some times to where you may not have someone that breaks through until the last day.
Matt Wade
The last day. That's right.
Savannah
And it's because you have had to. First off, people are going to a random place, like on your drive there, you're like, oh, am I like gonna be a part of a cult or what is Going on, like, no phone, no computer, no tv. But I swear it's not a cult. It's not the greatest thing in the entire world.
Matt Wade
It is unbelievable.
Savannah
But you get there and then it's like you gotta. You're kind of, you know, looking around and you've Surveying your space. Is this a safe space for me? Is it not? And when you do it with a partner, I mean, you're with each other 24 7. Like, you're sleeping in the same room. You're doing all the same things. So you don't get the chance to just like, get pissed off and walk out. Walk out.
Matt Wade
Right.
Savannah
That's just not an option.
Matt Wade
Right.
Savannah
Which is, I think, amazing because you're forced. I mean, you're not forced. You could leave if you really wanted.
Matt Wade
You could. Yeah.
Savannah
But you're in an atmosphere to where it's like all. The only option we've got is to work this out.
Matt Wade
That's right.
Savannah
And that, for me, is. That was something that I learned because, you know, growing up, I mean, love my parents to death. Greatest parents ever. But in their generation, I feel like it was more about, like, fighting and then going on about your day.
Matt Wade
Right.
Savannah
And then we're fine at night, but we're not having that, like, repair or.
Matt Wade
That's right. The repair is not happening.
Savannah
Yeah. And I think that can be very, you know, for me, that. That's very detrimental.
Matt Wade
For me, it is very detrimental.
Savannah
Like, I have. Because I have done that, unfortunately. I can put on a face, I can smile, I can go out the door and be like, all right, everything's fine. But you had those wounds that you now have created with someone, and you're just moving past them.
Matt Wade
Right. But you're not. You're not moving past them.
Savannah
Yeah. What do you call that?
Matt Wade
I. Well, I guess if I'm looking at that through how I would use therapy talk.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
I call it a rip or a rupture. And those ruptures have to be repaired. In fact, there's two things that are predicting whether a couple will stay together or not. And one is a lack of repair attempts. Second one is contempt. And John Gottman made that whole thing very famous about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse that comes for us. And that's maybe a whole other show.
Savannah
Go into it.
Matt Wade
Well, yeah, so he talks about the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which is defensiveness, criticism, contempt, and stonewalling. If those things are not brought into check, the marriage is going to suffer. The relationship is going to suffer tremendously. So if we don't have a. If we don't have a repair after the rupture on an ongoing basis, it wounds the attachment between the couple ship. And then if contempt shows up, this kind of disgust for your partner shows up. We got major problems at that point. In fact, real quick, contempt is the number one predictor of divorce.
Savannah
Really?
Matt Wade
Yeah. According to John Gottman, which is the most researched marriage therapist in the world,
Savannah
I'd say he knows what he's doing.
Matt Wade
He kind of knows what they're. They kind of know him and his wife know what they're doing.
Savannah
Yeah. So in the work that you've done with couples, would you say, in your experience, who is harder to get to show up in the room, the male or the female?
Matt Wade
That's very good. It's not about the gender. It's about the attachment.
Savannah
Mm.
Matt Wade
It's about the attachment wounding. Because traditionally, people would say men are more avoidant and women are more anxious.
Savannah
Yes.
Matt Wade
Okay, fine.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
But it's ultimately about the deep wounding that's showing up. It's because I don't want you to see my vulnerability.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
I don't want you to truly know that I don't feel like I'm enough. I don't want you to know that. So I can't show up in the room and tell you that. So instead, I just protest.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
I just get angry. But ultimately, under my anger is just a bunch of fear that I'm a wounded little boy who needs somebody to give him a hug. Yeah.
Savannah
And I think that that's something that you do really well, and then I think on site does really well is taking it back to that inner child.
Matt Wade
The inner child work.
Savannah
Yeah, yeah, that. Except first I'm like, this is the dumbest I've ever done. Like, why am I coloring? Like, why am I like.
Matt Wade
Yeah, of course. Why are you paying that kind of money to come color? Yes, no doubt, no doubt. Of course. Yeah.
Savannah
And then after, you're like, abby, damn, that coloring was worth it.
Matt Wade
Yes. You know, did they make you color with your non dominant hand?
Savannah
They made me. It was like coloring a timeline and all this.
Matt Wade
Yes, of course. A trauma timeline.
Savannah
Yeah. And I say, I. This was the first time I did it, and I did my intensive one on one, and I used the same markers, the same paper for everything.
Matt Wade
Yeah.
Savannah
And I did the whole timeline of my life, and there was one paper that was like, the most traumatic years of my life. And then at the end of the week, she's like, all right, you want to go outside and Burn this or you want to throw it away? I was like, I'll just throw it away. And then something came over me and I was like, you know what? I'll burn it.
Matt Wade
I burn it.
Savannah
We went out to the fire and I threw all the papers in at the exact same time. The piece of paper that was the most traumatic years of my life was the last one to burn.
Matt Wade
Not coincidence.
Savannah
And I was like, this right here. That kind of put the closing on my entire week.
Matt Wade
Yep.
Savannah
And it was like, you know what? The trauma that you go through is going to stay with you. Right. It's going to show up in your life. It took the longest to burn. So it's going to take the longest for you to work through.
Matt Wade
That's right.
Savannah
And it's gonna be there, but eventually it's gonna fade out.
Matt Wade
That's right.
Savannah
And it was, I was like, well, I'll color again next time.
Matt Wade
Color again next time. That's exactly right.
Savannah
Yeah. But it's just amazing how your brain kind of interprets things or feels things differently. And when the inner child work, it's as an adult, we forget about that person.
Matt Wade
We do. Yeah. In fact, we do. One of our primary things that on site is inner child work. You've talked about that. We, we can. We seem to tamp that part of us down because we don't realize that often our adult behavior is just our inner child trying to drive the bus. Yeah, right. We don't realize that there is a three year old, a five year old, a six year old or whatever really kind of in charge of us. And that's why we end up having maladaptive behaviors as adults. And the kind of. The funny question we ask all the time at on site is what happens when a five year old drives a bus? Exactly what you think would happen when a five year old drives a bus. Everybody gets ran over. It's a disaster. Right. And so what we do is we take you back and really have you get in touch with that part of you that has been kind of relegated to the past and really kind of get back in touch with that part to reconnect those things so that you can re parent the part of you that was neglected when you were a child. So we're helping you repair at that part because if not, it's going to keep bubbling up and you're going to keep having behaviors. You know, why am I behaving like a kid? Because you have an unparented child in you.
Savannah
Yeah. And when you say things like this, I Feel like a lot of times you may see some defensiveness in people saying, my parents weren't bad parents.
Matt Wade
Right.
Savannah
Like, my parents, for all intents and purposes, were great.
Matt Wade
Wonderful.
Savannah
Were wonderful. But I think, again, they're not superheroes. Right.
Matt Wade
That's right.
Savannah
So they screw up, they leave lasting marks.
Matt Wade
That's right.
Savannah
But it's not intentional. It's not to say. It's not to say, oh, your parents were shitty parents.
Matt Wade
Right. Right.
Savannah
And how do you explain that to people who struggle with. Who struggle with seeing that inner child.
Matt Wade
Yes.
Savannah
Who was. Who feels maybe hurt or abandoned or not seen. But on the other end, as an adult, they're like. But they were there for me.
Matt Wade
Right.
Savannah
You know, like, how do you bridge that gap?
Matt Wade
Great question. Yeah. So I use the. And language. My parents were there for me, and I didn't get everything that I needed. And can I live in that tension? Can I live in that world of. And I didn't get what I needed from them.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
So I invite people into curiosity. Can I be curious about this? Can I. Can I go, okay, my mom and dad did this, this, this, and this, and they did it well. And emotionally, I did not get what I needed from them and be able to hold both of those worlds there and that be okay. And just be okay with that reality. Because here's what I know. The inner child's not going away. So we can say, well, mom and dad did all this for me, and I don't want to be. I don't want to speak ill of them. Don't speak ill of them, but go speak nice to your inner child. You don't have to speak ill of them to go care for your inner child.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
Yeah.
Savannah
And when people are doing this work, would you say, obviously, you've been in this for a long time.
Matt Wade
Yeah.
Savannah
The past few years, I think, like I said, therapy has been, like, heightened as a lot of people tout it as. Like I say, it changed my life, saved my life. But I start to think about, you know, a big thing for me with going to therapy and getting help was I don't want to pass all of these things down to my children.
Matt Wade
Oh, my.
Savannah
Like, I want to be healed.
Matt Wade
And that's right.
Savannah
When I bring another life into this world.
Matt Wade
That's right.
Savannah
Do you see a lot of that in people who are coming to do work?
Matt Wade
Yeah. In fact, here's what we know about that, and I think I'm answering your question. If I don't, let me know and I'll fix it. Okay. What we know is that trauma can be passed up to three generations epigenetically. We know this.
Savannah
We know this trauma lives in the.
Matt Wade
Trauma lives in the body. It's in the bones. So if we don't do our trauma work, our children will. Oh, yeah.
Savannah
That's a tough one.
Matt Wade
Yeah. If we don't do our trauma work, our children will have to do it for us.
Savannah
Wow.
Matt Wade
And they will have their own stuff and they'll go, why do I feel this way? I don't even. I don't even know why is my anxiety so bad? But what if they had a great childhood? What if they had great secure attachment, but their anxiety is out of the roof? It could be grandmothers.
Savannah
Wow.
Matt Wade
Yeah.
Savannah
That is crazy.
Matt Wade
It's called epigenetics. Yeah. It rides in the DNA. It's like a rider on the DNA that comes down up to three generations. And we. We know this just. It's been. Been studied so much.
Savannah
Wow.
Matt Wade
Yeah.
Savannah
That is insane.
Matt Wade
It is wild. And it's so. I could be dealing with grandfather's anxiety.
Savannah
That is crazy. So would you say with children, are you starting to see more. Obviously you work with adults, but I figure you probably have colleagues and people who work with children are more parents putting their children in therapy in today's day and age and ever before, really?
Matt Wade
I would say so. I mean, my daughter's in therapy. Right. My sweet Nelly, we, because of seeing some anxiety, she's having to learn to manage at a young age. And she probably got it from me. Right.
Savannah
Wow.
Matt Wade
So, yeah. Yeah. So we have her in therapy.
Savannah
And what would you say are the benefits to a child being in therapy?
Matt Wade
Learning how to find coping skills that are healthy at a young age and learning how to have their window of tolerance widened so they can learn how to function at a better level in this world because of this thing right in front of their face all day long.
Savannah
Yes.
Matt Wade
There's a great book called the Anxious Generation, and it's all about the impact of devices on our children.
Savannah
It's bad. I've heard about the book. I haven't read it. I need.
Matt Wade
Fantastic.
Savannah
But they say. Don't they say, like, within the first three years or something of the children's life, like not having them on a screen?
Matt Wade
Something along the lines of that. Yes.
Savannah
Extremely important.
Matt Wade
Very, very important. Yeah. I don't know all the data on that. I know that book carries that data, and that book was fantastic.
Savannah
I'm definitely going to read that.
Matt Wade
Do it.
Savannah
Because I know, like, Grayson. Grayson has been in therapy for A while now.
Matt Wade
Yeah.
Savannah
And I have never come in contact with a 19 year old guy who can communicate the way that he can.
Matt Wade
Right.
Savannah
About feelings or about like there have been times where he's called me out, he's called my dad out. He's called like, you're acting like a child.
Matt Wade
Yeah.
Savannah
And I'm like, who are you? You're the child. Leave me alone. But I'm like, yeah. Oh, he's right.
Matt Wade
He's right. Yeah.
Savannah
You know, and to see just how he can interpret his feelings and explain them.
Matt Wade
Yeah.
Savannah
It gives me so much hope.
Matt Wade
Yeah. Well, therapy gives us language around what we're finally feeling. Or it gives us. Yeah, it gives us language around that because if not, I'll have all of these feelings, I'll have all these emotions and have no idea what, what, what do I even call this?
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
Right. And then we. Yeah, then we're confused about it. So therapy gives us language around what we're feeling.
Savannah
I love that. Well, this gives us really good language.
Matt Wade
I think it does.
Savannah
And it's 90 days.
Matt Wade
It is 90 days. Now here's the thing. People go, why did you write a book?
Savannah
That's what I was about to ask you. Why did you write a book that's just 90 days for 90 days?
Matt Wade
Because it takes 66 days. A habit. And so I wanted to have some and then a little bit more. So it's 13 weeks or 90 days. And you can do all 90 days or you can pick the first day of the week. I wrote it so that if you said, I don't want to do every single day, just pick the first day of the week of each of the assignments and work through it with your partner. And you can actually do it as an individual as well. But it's always better to have somebody to do it with you.
Savannah
I mean, you at the end of the day, the relationship that you have with yourself dictates the relationship that you have with others.
Matt Wade
Yeah. I say good individual work makes for good couples work.
Savannah
Yes.
Matt Wade
Yeah. Taking care of.
Savannah
That's something that you've always said you're like if you're not each doing your individual work.
Matt Wade
That's right.
Savannah
There's chances are your couple's work is not going to be.
Matt Wade
Going to be as beneficial.
Savannah
That's right. Yeah, that is. Okay. So 90 days you have. And how long would you say it takes each day to do this?
Matt Wade
20 minutes, 10 minutes? Very, very simple.
Savannah
And so you go through your. Oh, I love this look where love feels safe. Yeah, that's a So I will say for me personally, I am like, kind of from like the show me state, you know?
Matt Wade
Sure.
Savannah
Which is. I'm trying to get out of that habit, but unfortunately, I've had so much just negative in my life. Right. Things falling apart, people not doing what they say they're gonna do.
Matt Wade
Let's call it what it is. You've had trauma.
Savannah
Yes, yes, yes, I've had trauma. And now, like, the person that I'm with, I'm like, I'll believe it when I see it.
Matt Wade
I'll leave it when I see it.
Savannah
And he's like, is that supposed to be motivating? Because it's not.
Matt Wade
Of course not.
Savannah
And I'm like, it's not. Like I. That's very motivating when people doubt me, you know? And he's like, no, that's not motivating at all.
Matt Wade
So when will you be at onsite again? Right, right.
Savannah
I still. But it's, you know, unfortunately, you know, I've tried to temper it some, but it's like now, any time it's. I feel like it kicks, it's like anytime he does what he says he's going to do, it slowly chips away at that doubt of, you're not going to do what you said you were going to do.
Matt Wade
Well, in fact, what you're saying is actually science.
Savannah
Yeah, see, see there, I found a way to justify it.
Matt Wade
Science. Let me say it like this. In order to have secure attachment, you have to have enough safe experiences for your nervous system to exhale. If I don't have enough, if I grew up with. Without safe experiences, I'm not going to trust. So I have to have enough safe encounters with someone particularly romantically, where my nervous system kind of goes, finally.
Savannah
Yeah, yeah. And how would you then, if you're helping a couple work through something like that, what would you. What advice would you give to the person who is on the other side of that, who's having to maybe give more consistency, or someone like me who's saying, I'll believe it when I see it. And they're like, that's not motivating.
Matt Wade
Right.
Savannah
You know what, what is your advice in a situation like that?
Matt Wade
Well, first I would say is that I probably wouldn't give them advice. I would invite them into a conversation around curiosity, around, why is each person showing up in the relationship the way they're showing up? Anyway, good therapy is not good advice. Yeah, good therapy is good questions.
Savannah
That is true. You. Your big question. I'm like, stop asking me questions.
Matt Wade
No, I can't. Tell me, because I want you to find the answer within yourself. Because you'll always own an answer that you find yourself. Yeah, you're always going to own an answer you find yourself. But if I tell you what to do, it's like, healing is simple, Savannah. It's just not easy.
Savannah
Healing is simple. It's just not easy.
Matt Wade
I can tell you what to do, but you're not going to go do
Savannah
it now because you don't feel it within yourself. You don't feel led or.
Matt Wade
It has to be integrated in myself. It has to be a part of me for me to go walk that out. So probably not going to give advice. I'm probably just going to invite them into some deeper questions to get curious about themselves.
Savannah
I love that. So what would you say if you know some. Let's say a couple is reading this book, but there's only one of them that really wants to participate to see that growth.
Matt Wade
Yeah, I would say keep going. Because attraction is better than promotion. If you can be the change and do the work yourself, chances are your partner is going to be like, okay, things are changing. Let me dive into this with you.
Savannah
I love that.
Matt Wade
Yeah.
Savannah
And so what are the key things that this book touches on?
Matt Wade
Yeah. So the number one is what is emotional safety? If we don't have emotional safety, it's a no go. We have to start there.
Savannah
Yeah.
Matt Wade
So we're going to talk about emotional safety. We're going to talk about intimacy in the book. We're going to talk about forgiveness, which is this right here.
Savannah
Yes, this. But also, I love the covers of these. They just make you.
Matt Wade
Thank you.
Savannah
So, yeah. So heart model. And both of these can be found on Amazon.
Matt Wade
They can, yes.
Savannah
Okay.
Matt Wade
And the Heart model is technically launching in April, but it's actually available on Amazon now. So I guess we're launching it today on your podcast. I didn't know.
Savannah
I love it.
Matt Wade
This is great.
Savannah
This is. Okay, so what's the difference between these two?
Matt Wade
So the Heart model is a model that I built for couples for a new pathway to forgiveness. And it's an acronym, heart. Honor the hurt, Empathize with the experience, Acknowledge responsibility, Release the resentment, and turn toward repair. And it's a five step process to help couples move through everyday ruptures. Now, this book is not for people who are going through a fair recovery or anything like this. This is for daily ruptures. These are kind of like these rips and tears that really kind of clawed our relationship every day of how do we move toward forgiveness, toward each other. Other.
Savannah
Wow. I love that because I think it's so hard for couples and people who are in the midst of just turmoil in their relationship. You know, it's so hard for them to look or see light on the other side. Right, right. That there's going to be repair and there's. But there can be so much intimacy found in repairing your relationship.
Matt Wade
Yes.
Savannah
Which I think is so hard for people to understand. But I'm a firm believer that you can fall more in love with your partner in the midst of repair than you did before.
Matt Wade
Yeah. I mean, if I look at me and Amber's relationship, we started this conversation out talking about my sweet Amber and how we've had to repair over the years. Like what we have now is kind of not. It doesn't seem real. It doesn't seem. Yeah. It's like, are you kidding me? This is actually what marriage could be like. It's that good. And it is that damn good where it's, it's mind boggling. But because of the repair and even now, even when we have to go through a rip or a rupture, we. We know how to come back to each other. And that's really kind of our heart and our passion. That's why I wrote Secure to help couples find their way back to each other.
Savannah
And what are things that you two do in your daily life to make sure that you're staying, you know.
Matt Wade
Yes.
Savannah
As a team and not having those ruptures?
Matt Wade
That's a great question. The first thing is we repair quickly. We don't let things fester. We repair quickly. Second is we believe the best about each other. So whatever happens, I'm going to believe the best in her intentions about me. The third thing is, is we have rituals. So Every morning at 4am we get up and have coffee together and we start our day off at 4am and then now we're in the bed by 7:30 now because we still have to have eight hours of sleep. Right. But we had to, huh? Oh yeah. It's kind of like I'm an afghan and a lazy boy away from being an old man. I'm in geriatric schedule already and I'm only 46 years old. Right? Yes. And so but we have our ritual that where we build in time for each other because our lives are so crazy. I mean my wife homeschools our kids. She owns a med spa, she's in nurse practitioner school and she still has a full time job. Wow. So. And then I work it on site. I have my private practice stuff that I do with unstuck therapy, and I speak. I teach college classes. I mean, we are so very, very busy. We have to be so intentional. So that's why we get up before the rest of the world does, or we would never see each other. But it's that or drift. And I'm going to tell you, nobody drifts toward a healthy marriage.
Savannah
Oh, I love that.
Matt Wade
Yeah.
Savannah
No one drifts towards a healthy marriage. That is so true. It's so hard to be intentional.
Matt Wade
It is hard to be intentional when
Savannah
you have your crazy, busy life and I've got a meeting here, this there, whatever.
Matt Wade
Right.
Savannah
But you have to.
Matt Wade
You have to. Your life, your relationship life, the quality of that depends on your intentionality. So, yeah, intentional time together, rituals, things like that are so vital.
Savannah
That's amazing. What is it that you hope people take from these two books?
Matt Wade
Oh, that's a. That's a unique question. Yeah. What do I hope they take from those two books? One is I hope they find themselves or hope they find their way back to each other through Secure. That's my heart. That's why I wrote that. I didn't write that book to sell it. I wrote that book to give to my couples when they come to intensives. But people are wanting to buy it. I'm like, you want to buy my book? This is amazing.
Savannah
Of course, y'.
Matt Wade
All.
Savannah
I told him he needs an audio book of something. I guess maybe just do something and say, run, and maybe I'll run. Because his voice is, like, the most therapeutic thing I've ever heard.
Matt Wade
Kind. You're so kind. And for the heart model, I invented the heart model, and it's in the book Secure. And so I just wrote the heart model as its own standing, standalone kind of model, because there's not a couple's forgiveness model in therapy. There's a lot of individual, like, in rights forgiveness model. Worthington's forgiveness model. We have models in therapy for forgiveness, but there wasn't one specifically built for couples. And so I introduced this one in the book Secure, and then wrote its own little workbook beside it.
Savannah
I love this because I think, too, when people have an acronym or people have a say.
Matt Wade
Yeah.
Savannah
You know, it's like I say, I dated this guy when I was, like, 16, and, you know, he was a musician, a bad boy. My parents wanted to kill me, but I remember his mother telling me, hey, when you get into an argument, you don't have to come at each other.
Matt Wade
Right.
Savannah
Just say what you did really made me feel this way.
Matt Wade
This way.
Savannah
Or I felt this way when this occurred. Because no one can argue with a feeling.
Matt Wade
That's right.
Savannah
And when she said that, you, like, now Almost what? I'm 28, so, you know, little whiles later, I still remember that, like when I get into an argument with someone or if someone says something to me and I want to get defensive, I have learned that vulnerability and saying that really made me feel this way, and I didn't like it.
Matt Wade
That's right.
Savannah
That is more attractive and that. That keeps an open door to dialogue.
Matt Wade
That's right.
Savannah
And so it's things like this that's like when you think of heart and honoring the hurt, empathizing, acknowledgement, releasing and their turnaround. That's so. I mean, it's brilliant because I'm the person that thinks, all right, beginning, middle, and end. I need to get to the end of this.
Matt Wade
That's right.
Savannah
That is amazing. So people can find this on Amazon. Heart, model and secure. I am so excited to honestly do both of these because I feel like that is something too. Is. Is don't wait until you need it to do it.
Matt Wade
Oh, no, please don't wait till you need it. No.
Savannah
That's something. People run to therapy thinking it's going to repair this colossal storm. When in reality, if you do something like this, even if you think, oh, I've got a perfect relationship, it's great, then why not do something to strengthen.
Matt Wade
Strengthen that. That I can do this in crisis or I can do it in connection. It's up to me.
Savannah
Oh, I love that. See, you always have something for everything.
Matt Wade
Thank you.
Savannah
You do well. Thank you so much for doing this.
Matt Wade
Are you kidding me? Thank you.
Savannah
I'm so. I'm excited to start doing these. So I am going to do this. And I also think it's good whenever you have busy schedules and you may be away from each other for a week, two weeks, three weeks to have something that brings you back.
Matt Wade
That's right. That's right. Yep. And it will definitely bring you back to each other.
Savannah
Well, thank you.
Matt Wade
You are the best. Thank you.
Savannah
Matt Wade. Go find his books on Amazon. I promise you, he's changed my life. Okay, so this is just a little tip for you guys, but thank you for listening. And you're the best.
Matt Wade
Thank you, buddy.
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Savannah
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PodcastOne | March 10, 2026
In this deeply personal and insightful episode, Savannah Chrisley welcomes therapist and author Matt Wade to discuss trauma—how it impacts our relationships, the journey toward healing, and the power of vulnerability. Savannah and Matt delve into therapy experiences, attachment styles, trauma bonding, and building emotionally safe and connected partnerships. Matt shares from both his clinical expertise and his own marriage, offering listeners hope, practical frameworks, and a better understanding of themselves and those they love.
[02:36] Introduction of Matt Wade and his book Secure
[03:09–05:02] Matt’s story: Marriage crisis, implosion, and the journey through intensive therapy
[07:51–08:10] The importance of radical honesty and ending secrecy
[11:00–12:00] Trauma and secrets leak out whether we want them to or not
[16:36–17:26] Trauma bonding vs. authentic connection; recognizing your own patterns
[24:46–25:01] Vulnerability and repair: “Word vulnerable in Latin means wound”
[32:11–32:56] Inner child work and the symbolism of burning trauma timelines
[35:07–35:58] Accepting both parental goodness and unmet needs
[37:03–37:46] Epigenetics: Trauma passed down three generations
[41:03] Individuals must do their own work for couples therapy to be effective
[46:15] The Heart Model explained: A framework for forgiveness
[49:33] Morning rituals and the necessity of intentionality in relationships
[52:54–53:15] “Don’t wait until you need it” — preventive approach to relationship health
The conversation is raw, humorous, gentle, and deeply empathetic. Both Savannah and Matt display candor, humility, and hope, using storytelling and evidence-based insights to break down complex topics around trauma, healing, and love.
Recommended For: Anyone seeking to understand the real work of relationship repair, trauma processing, and authentic personal growth—whether single, partnered, or simply curious about what deep healing looks like.