This Week on Another Brother:

In episode #010, The Stoner Steve System, the brothers dip their toes into the mysteries that reside at Skinwalker Ranch in Eastern Utah. They might take a deep dive at some point. Bear with us though, it seems like the Ranch doesn’t like being talked about. The brothers suffered various technical difficulties including chunks of the recording being lost and the recording cutting off early. Josh is obsessed, just wait until you hear how enthusiastic he is! To follow this hard-hitting subject, Alex takes on his latest journey with mental health. Trust us, it’s more interesting than you’re thinking, you’ll be left wanting to hear more and maybe even wanting to try out this therapy growing in popularity!

Visit our website for merch and other brother goodness.

Episode Links (***Spoiler Alert***):

• Check out Skinwalker Ranch’s own official site.
• Do you want to watch the hit show the Secret of Skinwalker Ranch yourself? Well go ahead, it’s free!
• But don’t forget, some of the crew helped make a podcast for season one.
• An information site about EMDR, if you’re interested in learning more!
• An informational site about IFS if you’re interested in learning more!
• Eddie Munson, Alex’s psyche’s inspiration for Stoner Steve, ’nuff said.
• Please take a listen to An American Elegy by Frank Ticheli and see how moving it truly is.

Transcript:

The following transcript was created using the OpenAI Whisper API:

[00:00:00] Editor’s Note

Soundbyte: Hello, all you brothers out there. It’s Alex. Before we get into this episode, I need to start with an editor’s note. This week, we talked about Skinwalker Ranch. This is a place in Utah where very strange things happen, and we had some recording issues while talking about the ranch. This is not made up to sensationalize this episode. We’ve never had these problems before, but portions of our audio were just not recorded. Entire minutes at a time that were just not recorded, so that we’ll be talking about one thing and suddenly we’re talking about another thing during playback. I’ve done my best to edit something that makes sense out of this weird mess of a recording, but it is going to be a little janky. I apologize. I wish I could say this were made up because it’s a little freaky.

[00:00:59] Editor’s Note

Soundbyte: Editor’s note 2. Now that I’ve actually completed the edit on this, I know what is missing from our recording. You may find this segment on Skinwalker Ranch a little on the boring side, and that’s because all of the actual interesting stuff is missing. Take that as you will. Enjoy the episode.

[00:01:22] This Week on Another Brother

[00:01:53] Another Brother Theme Song

[00:02:10] Stewnerds Segment

Jacob: Skinwalker Ranch.

Josh: Oh my gosh.

Alex: Okay. Ready? Are you guys ready for? I think this is going to be the hot take. I’m a skeptic.

Josh: Okay.

Alex: I’ve seen four episodes, I think, now of season one of the History Channel show.

Josh: Yeah.

Alex: I haven’t listened to any of the podcast.

Josh: Part of your problem. Keep going.

Alex: That’s what you’ve said. Yeah. And I’m just not buying that they’re doing their due diligence, which could totally be it.

Jacob: I’m going to time out it real quick right there. We’re going to back up for the listener. Skinwalker Ranch. This is a ranch in eastern Utah.

Alex: Northeastern.

Jacob: Thank you. Large property, 530, 512 acres. Lots of weird stuff going on there for decades, if not a couple of centuries.

Josh: Hundreds of years if you count the Ute and Navajo records.

Jacob: Right.

Alex: Which is where the name comes from, is the Native tribes.

Jacob: Native American Skinwalkers. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Go back at it. I think that’s enough background.

Josh: So I’ll just say it’s understandable from my perspective for you to be a skeptic if all you’ve done is watch the show because I was the same.

Jacob: Josh has debate voice on.

Josh: Oh, do I?

Jacob: Yeah.

Josh: It’s just the gain on the microphone. No. I am 100% believer and we can get into it, but I don’t want to like spoil season two and season three and all these things.

Alex: Right.

Josh: But they’re trying to be deliberate. They’re trying to go by the scientific method. So like hypothesis, test, conclusion, hypothesis, test, conclusion.

Alex: Is that made more clear in the podcast?

Josh: Absolutely

Alex: Because the TV show makes their scientific method look like pee pee.

Josh: Right. Yeah. Yep. I got really upset by that. And so that’s when I found the podcast. But yeah, so all these guys are super uncomfortable behind the camera. Erik is and Erik mentions it in the podcast. He’s like, “I would rather be by myself in the command center crunching data.”

Alex: Yeah.

Jacob: He does come off that way.

Josh: But Tom really, I think around season two-

Alex: This is the superintendent of the property.

Josh: Which you’re like, OK, you know, he’s got the cowboy hat. You learn that he’s a very successful businessman. He’s the president of like the Rotary Club or something. He’s the president of a nonprofit international aid organization.

Jacob: Wow. What the heck.

Alex: I mean, he seems like a really nice guy.

Jacob: He does. And that’s he’s becoming my favorite. Because if nothing else, the one thing I feel from him, he feels earnest.

Josh: Yeah.

Alex: He’s like he’s like the Batman of the Super Friends. He’s like the human element. You know, the one guy that doesn’t have the superpowers that you’re like you, I can get.

Josh: Yeah. Yeah. And he just works hard. He’s like, all right, well, let’s go do it. He’ll say, what are you talking about? Come on. And he’ll grab the cases. He’ll-

Alex: What do you mean I can’t dig?! Like, I’m going to go dig!

Jacob: Yes, exactly.

Alex: Hospital.

Jacob: OK, what about Dragon though? What were you going to say about Dragon?

Josh: Oh so what I was going to say about Dragon. I also apologize. I was like, even now I’m in season three, I’m like, come on, Bryant. His real name is Bryant.

Jacob: That’s right.

Josh: Like, dial it back man. You’re a little you’re a little extra. But in the podcast, like he comes across as very intelligent-

Jacob: I’ll have to listen to that episode.

Josh: -very well meaning and you learn, the very first episode he’s on, you learn because I’m like, who calls himself Dragon?!

Jacob: Uhuh.

Alex: Yeah, sure.

Josh: It’s not his nickname.

Jacob: Well, I mean, it’s almost none of them call him Dragon in the show.

Alex: The owner does. That’s it.

Josh: There was a security guard on the ranch before him whose code or call sign was Dragon. And someone on the way out had called him drag because he’s a new security guy.

Alex: So you’re the new dragon.

Josh: They called him Dragon. And then I think somehow it’s stuck.

Jacob: Brandon probably thought it was funny. The owner of the ranch.

Josh: Brandon probably thought it was funny. Yeah. And they’re longtime friends. They were mission companions.

Alex: Oh, cool! Didn’t know that!

Jacob: That was it.

Josh: Dragon or Bryant was Brandon’s mission trainer.

Alex: Huh!

Jacob: In Hawaii.

Alex: And now employs him.

Josh: Yeah.

Jacob: Yes.

Alex: Weird how life works sometimes.

Josh: So but also-

Alex: In Hawaii?? Those lucky. I went to Italy.

Josh: Yeah. Whatever. No one’s as lucky as me. I went to Dallas.

Jacob: Yean and I’m the one who went to Siberia. So.

Josh: But the ranch ranch hands, Kandus and oh, shoot.

Alex: Not familiar with them yet.

Josh: Was it Thomas as well?

Jacob: Probably not. No, I don’t think so.

Josh: Well, he and Brandon are lifelong friends.

Jacob: Right. They’re both from Pleasant Grove. As well as Kandus, I think.

Josh: Oh, I didn’t know that. So there’s just this. I don’t know. It’s cool. But I feel like they- he selected. Well, Kandus is a-

Jacob: Anthropologist.

Josh: Published anthropologist.

Jacob: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Alex: What??

Jacob: All of these people, it’s like shocking what they actually know and have done.

Alex: The lady that lives in that house, that they go into the basement and there’s like a sealed off box.

Jacob: That’s them.

Josh: And they dig a hole into it.

Alex: Really?

Josh: Yeah. Published anthropologist.

Alex: Wow. Neat.

Josh: And and they start using her later to go collect. Well, she’s she’s more involved than this, but but she’ll go and like try to collect like the local folklore.

Jacob: Oh, cool.

Josh: And do like an anthropology perspective.

Alex: Nice.

Josh: So anyway, the people, whatever you when you’re watching the show, this is for all my listeners, please. When you’re watching the show, realize that it’s History Channel. And the editing, they’re just trying to get viewership.

Alex: It truly feels like Pawn Stars. It feels formulaic. It feels History Channel.

Jacob: It does. It’s very the show itself is produced very much as a History Channel show.

Josh: And this this this executive producer, TJ, he’s the one that got the whole show started. It took him a year to convince. He started talking with Thomas.

Alex: Superintendent.

Josh: Yeah. It took him a year of working through these guys, gaining trust, talking to Brandon Fugal to finally get them to agree that a show could be a good idea. They did not want this.

Alex: Wow. Cuz-

Josh: Because he sold it hard.

Alex: I thought for sure he bought the property hoping for something like this.

Josh: Nope. He-

Jacob: That’s kind of what I figured, too, as as an investment to start making that kind of money off.

Josh: Yeah, no. And you’ll see as in like season two and three, you’ll see Brandon is like invested for personal reasons. He’s like driven.

Alex: I mean that is what he said at the beginning of the show.

Josh: You can really tell some of the most mind blown expressions are coming from Brandon when they show him some of the stuff. Yeah, it’s awesome. But so-

Jacob: Yeah, Brandon Fugal, he’s like one of the biggest real estate developers in the country.

Josh: You’ll see his name on all these nice new office lease buildings.

Alex: He’s a legit mogul.

Jacob: The owner before him, the owner of the ranch before him was Robert Bigelow, who is the owner of Bigelow Aerospace.

Alex: Billionaire.

Jacob: So he owned the ranch for 20 years. And with some branch of the government, they were doing something very similar where they were doing all these scientific experiments trying to figure out what is going on here with with NIDS. What’s what’s NIDS stand for?

Josh: Oh, shoot.

Jacob: National-

Josh: Investigative Development Science or something.

Jacob: Something like that.

Josh: It’s basically, yeah, a lot of people will talk bad about NIDS. It’s like a pseudoscience for. But that’s what they developed NIDS for is to come to terms with observational science like phenomena.

Alex: So like Mulder on the X-Files.

Josh: Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob: So, yeah, so he was funding and helping research with the government.

Josh: Through AATIP contracts. It was AATIP programming.

Jacob: Since it was with the government. Pretty much everything that they did and found and saw is classified.

Josh: Or proprietary information or confidential.

Jacob: So the cool thing is we’re now Brandon, a private owner, owns it and is doing the research on his own. He’s part of the intent was to make it all public and visible for everyone.

Josh: And they do it. So I recently joined the Skinwalker Ranch Insider Program.

Jacob: I thought so.

Alex: Do you have to pay for it?

Josh: It’s seven, seven days free. And you get a shirt.

Jacob: Josh is wearing said shirt right now.

Josh: But they give you access to their live camera feeds. And-

Alex: OK, OK.

Josh: And spreadsheets full of data.

Jacob: That’s cool.

Josh: And you can help kind of crowdsource data points from the camera feeds because it’s impossible to like store all like they have so many cameras now.

Jacob: So cool.

Josh: It’d be impossible to store that data permanently. So they are reliant on volunteers, basically paid participants to watch the camera feeds when they can.

Alex: I’m sorry, volunteers or paid?

Josh: I mean, you’re paying to participate, right?

Alex: Oh, paid participation.

Josh: That’s what I mean. Yes. You’re you’re buying in.

Jacob: You’re not being paid. You are paying to join the community.

Josh: Right. And then you’re recording anomalous-

Jacob: and flagging when you see weird things.

Josh: You fill out the spreadsheet when you see it. Time stamp it. All that stuff. And you look at these spreadsheets. It is they are full of data points from just crowd crowdsource.

Alex: Sounds like a nightmare to me. I hate spreadsheets full of data.

Josh: Oh, I love. I love data.

Alex: I mean that is what you talk about with Skinwalker Ranch in our chats. “So much data!”

Josh: So much data! I mean, so I know I know we’re on a time crunch and I could literally talk about this for days and days and days. But since you guys you’re in season two, Jacob.

Jacob: Yeah. Maybe halfway through.

Josh: Alex, you’re halfway through season one?

Alex: Yeah.

Josh: So I’ll wait.

Alex: I don’t mind spoilers, truly.

Jacob: But I just want to say a few things like I grew up on the History Channel and on Discovery Channel. I think all three of us did.

Josh: Yeah.

Alex: Uhuh.

Jacob: The what makes this show different to me than like any of the others, like all the big shows I watch,

Alex: the Ghost Hunter shows.

Jacob: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, exactly. That is very much in the same vein. They’re actually getting super weird, unexplainable, anomalous data and things happening every single episode. And again, the episodes are so such a condensed time frame of all of the experimentations that they’re doing and everything that they’re doing throughout the entire year. So it’s crazy to me.

Josh: It is crazy. I think there’s a lot of-

Jacob: radiation burns, people being hospitalized because of really weird things happening. I don’t know. So much stuff.

Josh: And and OK, can I tell you? There’s so much I could go into, but I want to tell you.

Alex: OK, I’m watching the show to get the information to watch the show.

Josh: Oh, I know. I know.

Alex: So I don’t care how I get the information.

Josh: So, OK, I just want to tell one quick thing. Oh, dang it. I just like, OK, first backpedal real quick. Conspiracy theory. But just random connections, right? So Robert Bigelow from the state of Senator Harry Reid, same state. Harry Reid is the one mostly responsible for funding AATIP and getting it going. Big $22 million contract goes to Robert Bigelow, one of his big campaign funders, and he’s from his state.

Alex: You scratch my back, I scratch yours.

Josh: Yep. Harry Reid is LDS. Oh, you didn’t know that?

Alex: No.

Josh: Yeah, I think he was a stake president at some point. So Harry LDS major, after all the data he’s seen presented in Congress and through like the House and Senate Select Committee of Intelligence and things, he he has some interviews where he basically is like, yeah, there’s something there. And so he’s willing to go out and fund this stuff. So Robert Bigelow passes the property off to Brandon Fugal. Very strong, confident LDS member. And I think the majority, if not all of his staff on the ranch are LDS.

Alex: I’m in love with his helicopter. That thing is beautiful.

Josh: And Governor Herbert ends up getting on the show. Also, the Utah State Attorney General.

Jacob: Yes. I saw that one.

Josh: So that was season two, I think, or beginning of season two.

Alex: Interesting.

Jacob: Yes.

Josh: And OK, and Travis Taylor, the PhD, PhD astrophysicist, he no one knew this until after he left government service, federal service. So now he’s contracting. Sometime around the middle of season one. He gets approached by the director of the UAP Task Force, the new UAP Task Force. So post-AATIP. To be a I don’t know the titles, they get titles, get mixed up. Right. But to be a lead scientist for the UAP Task Force. He does that for three years. So he does that during season two, season three and season four.

Jacob: Whoa, wait a minute.

Josh: And no one on the show knows

Jacob: Oh it was during the

Josh: Yes.

Alex: But then they’ve changed the lower thirds since then, because that’s listed.

Jacob: Oh, really?

Alex: In the episodes that I’ve seen as a credential of his.

Josh: No, there’s no way.

Alex: I’m telling you, man, it was listed UAP programs.

Josh: Programs. OK,

Alex: I mean, I don’t know. I can’t remember exactly what it said, but it sure sounds like what you’re saying.

Josh: OK, well, it must be it must be a little bit different, though, because I watched the Q&A that they provide on Skinwalker Insider where he like tells them and this is after season four. After? Yeah. Yeah. Like he fairly recently left Federal Service. Well, I mean, they could have updated those and republished

Jacob: on their streaming platform

Alex: because that’s what I’m watching is their app.

Josh: Yeah, maybe the point being, although he’s covered by like classification issues and he helps write the classification guide for the UAP Task Force program. So he helped him and the director of the program helped determine what type of information they collect is and isn’t classified and at what level is classified and how you can share it and disseminate it.

Alex: Wow. Interesting.

Josh: So given that knowledge and his non-disclosure agreements with both Brandon Fugal and History Channel and the UAP Task Force and the federal government,

Jacob: That’s what I was going to say this feels like conflicts of interest.

Alex: Yeah, it sounds like a nightmare.

Josh: But and they talk about it in one of these Q&As. But he did at times use his guilty knowledge when he could to help steer the experiments going on at the ranch.

Jacob: Yeah.

Alex: Interesting.

Josh: And vice versa. So this guy, this man is committed. He’s in it.

Alex: Yeah, he was he appeared to be quite a skeptic before getting to the ranch.

Josh: Yeah. But I mean, he published this book called like How to Defend the Earth from an Alien Invasion.

Jacob: Right. He’s written two pieces of science fiction. But that.

Alex: Well, yeah, but it was science fiction.

Jacob: Yes.

Josh: He. Yeah. So so anyway, just it’s fascinating. Fascinating people, fascinating characters, great backgrounds and knowledge. OK, the one thing I want to tell you? Can I?

Alex: Better make it quick man.

Jacob: Because I have to leave us on a cliffhanger. So you go.

Josh: OK, OK. So forward looking infrared (FLIR) detects heat. Yeah?

Alex: Right.

Jacob: Yeah.

Josh: OK. Homestead 2? Homestead 2?

Jacob: Uhuh. Oh yeah. The epicenter.

Alex: Mhm.

Josh: So they put up two or they put a multiple forward looking infrared cameras on the mesa looking down at the front of Homestead to.

Alex: Oh, OK.

Josh: So basically looking like right at the front door.

Alex: That’s the reverse of what I’ve seen so far.

Josh: OK, so now you’re looking down at it. Yeah. Apparently there’s some Jewish Rabbinic tradition.

Jacob: Yes. We just watched this episode. This is the last episode we watched.

Josh: So you know what I’m talking about?

Jacob: Uh huh.

Josh: OK. Some rabbinic tradition where they believe they have this thing that they call tonal technology. Technology in the terms of like the answer. Anthropology technology. Right.

Alex: Yeah.

Josh: So it’s total technology where given the right, I’m assuming voice frequencies, analog frequencies and words and procedures. They believe they can open and close gates or portals to inner-dimensions.

Alex: There was a horror game on the Nintendo Wii based on this a little bit.

Josh: Oh, cool.

Alex: Yeah.

Josh: Jewish specifically?

Alex: Yes, specifically Jewish mythology.

Josh: So, OK, so that background, right? So they set up this safe place.

Jacob: Again, it’s part of the Jewish tradition behind this.

Josh: Yeah. You create like a holy center where you can where you’re safe and whatever you might invite.

Jacob: Invite is also safe.

Josh: In harmony. Oh, yeah.

Jacob: So one last thing, just a cliffhanger to keep everyone interested in the development of Skinwalker Ranch. I might have some connections. One of my coworkers, he personally knows Cameron Fugal, Brandon Fugal’s brother, who flies the helicopter in the show to get them to the ranch.

Alex: Such a nice helicopter, oh my gosh.

Josh: It’s beautiful.

Jacob: Let’s see, Matt, my brother in law, Matt’s dad knows Brandon Fugal professionally. So maybe not super close, but he probably has contact with the guy maybe. And last and best, Heather’s uncle knows him, I assume, again, professionally, but professionally well enough that it’s like personal terms now, too.

Alex: Is this the one that’s been invited on the ranch before?

Jacob: He has been invited to Skinwalker Ranch.

Josh: And accepted?

Jacob: He has not taken Brandon up on the invitation yet.

Josh: Standing invitation unfulfilled.

Jacob: So I’ll be working those contacts. See what I can do to get us on the ranch.

Josh: Knock those doors. Make those cold calls.

Jacob: Oh, yeah. Heather’s uncle’s is going to be my main approach here.

Josh: Well, I sent a connection request on LinkedIn to Brandon.

Jacob: You did? That’s funny. I just-

Alex: Oh wow! That’s aggressive.

Jacob: I just looked him up yesterday, too.

Josh: I have 11 common contacts.

Jacob: Oh, dang. I have five. But 11.

Alex: That’s right. That’s right. Not as aggressive as I as I was thinking.

Josh: Brandon, if your secretary or your executive assistant is listening to this, we should already be friends. We should already be connected.

Jacob: Let’s make this happen.

Alex: You’re right. I need to update my LinkedIn to say editor, producer, director, Another Brother.

[00:20:45] Stewnerds!

[00:20:52] Storytime Segment

Soundbyte: Hey, kids, do you know what time it is? Story time!

Alex: This is a mental health warning. If you are not comfortable with the subject of mental health, I don’t recommend listening to this. I guess the the more important trigger warning is suicide trigger warning. That is going to be talked about a tiny bit. Not not a lot, you know, but there you go. So this story deals with a form of therapy that’s relatively new to me called IFS, internal family systems. I’m going to try to give a brief overview of mental health journey and methods and stuff to this point, to where I started IFS as quickly as possible. This is just really rough. So for more than a decade, I have been doing talk therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy with the best in the business down in Provo Canyon Counseling. They’re amazing. And I got a lot of benefit out of doing that. It helped me a lot with a lot of different things, how I viewed myself and dealing with depression and anxiety. But nevertheless, I never felt like I was really fully healed. So when I heard about EMDR, not very long ago, a handful of months ago, maybe, I don’t know, six months ago, I wanted to give that a try. So I started EMDR.

Josh: And that’s the rapid eye movement.

Alex: That’s based on rapid eye movement, science, neuroscience, how the bilateral stimulation of the brain through the rapid movement of your eyes while sleeping allows the brain to sort memories, to put them away so that if you have PTSD, you’re stuck in a memory. You have memories that are not being processed properly. And this helps you to process them, put them away and basically recover from PTSD. Sometimes EMDR isn’t quite enough and you have something else in your way. If you go through enough trauma, your personality will go into subdivisions. And this this gets really weird and freaky. And I was hugely skeptical of this process. But if you go through enough trauma, you have these sub personalities within your psyche. And if it’s really bad, that’s where like multiple personality dissociative identity disorder comes from. Like those personalities get so separated from your core. That they can take over. And your core personality is basically unconscious for all of that time. That is not what this deals with. I do not have DID.

Josh: Wait, so so D.I.D. being kind of the extreme. Where your sub personalities are in control of the show. And possibly switching who’s in control when. OK.

Alex: And like how you can be narcissistic without having narcissistic personality disorder. Narcissistic personality disorder is extreme. But lots of people have a little bit of narcissism.

Jacob: OK. I see what you’re saying. Got it.

Alex: So my therapist, while we were doing some EMDR, he was helping me process a memory. And while we were doing the process, I don’t think I have enough time to talk about EMDR as a process, unfortunately. But as we were doing that, I had imagery of an older me holding the hand of a very little me in this memory type state, going around and telling the bullies to piss off.

Josh: Can I pause pause real quick?

Alex: Yeah.

Josh: So with EMDR, so as you’re processing memories, it’s like semi dreamlike state is for that part. And or is the therapist instructing you like, OK, now you’re going to be in this memory as adult Alex.

Alex: He did not say any of that. He said he basically said, think about this painful memory. And then he takes me through like slow taps is how we do it, where I have my arms crossed with hands on my biceps, basically. And I’ll tap my right hand on my left arm, my left hand on my right arm, slowly back and forth while thinking about this memory. And as I do so, it starts to take on a life of its own as if I were dreaming. I’m fully conscious, fully awake. But the more I surrender to letting it just do what it’s going to do, the better the outcome in my experience so far.

Josh: So it happens that you you happened in this example of the memory. You happened to manifest yourself.

Alex: It just happened on its own. Yeah.

Josh: OK. Really interesting.

Alex: So while we were doing that, he was like later, he was like, it looks to me like we might want to integrate some IFS into this process because it kind of just happened on its own. It looks like you might benefit from that. And I was like, I have no idea what that is, but I’m open to anything. So in a later session, he tells me what IFS is. And in my head, I think it’s bullcrap. I am so skeptical of it. It sounds like another BS pseudo science.

Josh: Visualization techniques.

Alex: And visualization techniques have never meant anything to me. Like they just seem hokey and stupid to me. I know a lot of people get a lot of benefit out of it. And I wish that I had been one of those people, but it just always felt dumb and weird to me. But I was also open to anything to help make this work a little better. So he said he told me to find a painful memory that I wanted to work on, that I felt that maybe EMDR wasn’t helping me with enough. So I thought of a memory. I closed my eyes just because I thought it was easier. And I pictured where I was during this memory, brought that into my mind very clearly. And I started playing the most painful part of the memory kind of on a loop.

Jacob: Oh, that sounds rought.

Alex: Almost like I was rough. Almost like in the movie Captain Marvel, when she’s in that weird machine that the Skrulls put her in, that allow them to like rewind and watch her memories. There’s a part of the memory where she’s talking to. We don’t know in spoiler alert for the movie. We don’t know at the time that this lady that she worked with, that she test piloted with was an alien. But she was and they’re trying to find this alien’s name. She keeps turning around and that lady is there at the start of the memory again. And then she’ll go through the whole memory and they’ll say, no, we need more. And she turns around and there she is again. And she just keeps replaying the memory on a loop. Don’t know why I brought that up. You guys aren’t familiar with the scenes.

Josh: The other gal’s like an older, older, more white lady. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Jacob: Fun and great in a Marvel movie, but yeah, in real practice with it being a traumatic memory, that sounds rough.

Alex: I mean, it was fine. You know, I just I guess I’ve got enough grit that I want to get this done that I don’t care about what what it takes. But yeah, so I’m playing that most painful part on a loop and I’m I’m able to like kind of separate myself from it and focus on what I’m feeling. That’s what he wants me to do. Start naming all of the emotions that I’m feeling. So I start listing off a bunch of things. And he’s able to take that list of feelings and organize it into three groups. These three groups are based on the three types of sub personalities one can have within them in this model of mental health, internal family systems. The three types of sub personality are the exile. This is the core of the family system. Then there is the protector or manager. And finally, the firefighter or rescuer. The exile takes a wound from a trauma and says, I’m going to carry this so the core person doesn’t have to. And they try to go and hide. The manager or protector splinters off from your personality and says, I’m going to help hide this person. I’m going to keep the core you from finding the exile to keep the exile safe so that the wound doesn’t grow any bigger and to keep you from even noticing that there is a wound at all. The firefighter or rescuer’s job is to deal with anything that might get past the manager to the exile. So they’re literally putting out the fire of the exile, having to deal with some pain. And the point, again, is so that you don’t have to notice the exile at all because the exile wants to stay hidden because it’s managing your pain for you. It’s a form of what’s that word where you separate everything off compartmentalization.

Josh: You might cut this, but it’s not super related to what you want to tell. I’m just really curious, like, what is the biological imperative? Like, what is the biological damage?

Alex: Survival.

Jacob: Self preservation, right?

Josh: So what survival? I mean, like biologically, what damage or threat to survival exists from a traumatic memory?

Alex: I believe it’s a fight or flight response. And unfortunately, because it’s in the mind, there’s nothing you can do about it.

Jacob: Yeah. An unhealthy psyche will lead to an unhealthy everything else.

Alex: So you just get in this adrenaline loop and the adrenaline, too much adrenaline causes a lot of damage to the body.

Josh: It’s dumping cortisol, which also has an impact on your testosterone.

Alex: And, you know, I’m not a trained professional, so unfortunately, I don’t. I don’t know.

Jacob: Right. Just slap a big asterisk on that.

Alex: With with talk therapy you do a lot of talking about mental health and learning about mental health. It’s almost like taking a private lesson in college about mental health,

Jacob: like giving yourself the tools. Right?

Alex: Right. But not just giving yourself the tools. It’s literally learning psychology, how the mind works, why it works the way it does. But with this kind of therapy, it’s very. It’s more clinical. It’s more, I guess you might even say surgical. It’s more about doing the process than learning and talking. So we don’t have time to really talk about why everything is the way it is. So I love it. Yeah.

Jacob: Later.

Alex: Yeah, maybe.

Jacob: And that can be a Stewnerds segment.

Alex: Sure.

Josh: But in this case with IFS, you categorize the subpersonalities that exhibit themselves as you’re processing this memory.

Alex: Kind of. Yeah. So I’m listing out the emotions and he’s able to say that emotion belongs to an exile, that emotion belongs to a manager, that one to a firefighter. And then he says, OK, I want you to focus on this emotion, which is an exile emotion. As we do this, someone’s going to come out of the woodwork to stop you from reaching the exile.

Jacob: That’s right.

Alex: That’s the point. We need to get all of the firefighters and the managers to trust us and what we’re doing to let us in to the exile. Then we have to win the exile’s trust.

Jacob: OK, so that. OK, OK. So you’re getting the trust of the people protecting you so that you can eventually get to the exile and and turn it.

Alex: and talk to the exile and see what they need to heal. And heal that exile.

Jacob: Got it. Cool.

Alex: What?

Josh: Can you visualize a wound for the exile?

Alex: Oh, don’t worry.

Josh: Can it always be an arrow in the knee?

Jacob: No way, did you get to an exile?

Alex: I did!

Jacob: Oh, OK, let’s go!

Alex: I’ve talked to an exile. So,

Josh: Which just earlier this week you had not yet.

Alex: Correct. This so this happened on Friday.

Jacob: Yeah.

Alex: Two days ago. So this first session of IFS, I’m I’m concentrating on this emotion that he told me to. And he says, find where it is in your body, find where you feel this emotion in your body.

Jacob: Which is an interesting thing to me.

Alex: I know. Well, like my body has always been like breaking and malfunctioning, and I’ve never been particularly coordinated or athletic. That marching band story, that’s the most athletic I’ve ever been.

Josh: That’s dang it. Buttons. That’s because you’re this is your next life. And before you used to be a smaller person.

Alex: Oh, right.

Josh: So you’re just not used to this body yet.

Alex: Right.

Josh: That’s what Button says.

Alex: Oh is it?

Josh: Yeah because he’s a big guy. And really, oafy.

Jacob: Oh, OK.

Alex: I see. OK. So anyway, yeah, it was kind of weird for me trying to find the emotion in my body. But I did. I found it kind of like right right above my sternum. This is where I felt any kind of physical sensation with the emotion. So I concentrated on that spot and on the emotion and the place where I was in the memory.

Josh: Sorry, Alex is pointing to his sternum like that. Like dead center.

Alex: Just above my sternum. Yeah. I mean, I did say it.

Jacob: Yeah.

Josh: I’m sorry. There’s so much editing for this.

Alex: It’s all good. So I focus on it. And as I do, the place where I’m at in the memory, which is a real physical place, you know, just like where I was when this event took place for real skis, it morphs and stretches into a long, dark hallway. And I just know that the exile is at the end of that hallway. It does this on its own. I swear I am not trying to make anything happen because I’m super skeptical of this entire thing. So I’m trying to follow the emotion. I feel like I’m being pulled down the hallway through a string coming out of my sternum where that where I feel that pain, like I can feel like a strand coming out of it. And I’m like trying to pull myself down this strand, which is exactly how a high level spell in D&D works. You can you can separate your astral form from your body. And there’s a tether, an astral tether between your astral form and your body back to your body, back to your body. But that tether can be severed and then you’re screwed. But anyway, so I didn’t even think about that until right now. So I don’t know why this imagery came to my mind.

Josh: But what if a protector tries to sever your tether?

Alex: I’m sure you’d be fine. As long as you don’t leave this plane of existence you’ll be fine.

Josh: Yeah. No Doctor Strange stuff going on.

Alex: So I’m following it. And I don’t get particularly far when someone steps out into the hallway from a room that’s attached to the hallway. And strangely, he looks a lot like Eddie Munson from Stranger Things four, the hairband, Metallica, slowing D&D Dungeon Master from season four of Stranger Things.

Josh: Who, by the way, sacrifices himself.

Alex: He does. True that. Spoiler alert again.

Jacob: Good call though.

Alex: Wow lots of Spoiler alerts here this week.

Josh: That’s like three- Oh good point though

Jacob: Yeah. If you’re not up on season four-

Josh: that’s that’s what I mean. You know, Eddie Munson. Legit character just puts himself on the line. Ultimate sacrifice to protect everyone else.

Alex: I’m really sad he’s gone. I would love to get a lot more.

Jacob: But you never know. Right. No, there’s no way they’re bringing him back after Billy or Bobby. Billy, Bobby Brown? Bobby, Billy, Bobby?

Josh: Bobby Billy Brown. The actress that plays Eleven.

Jacob: Millie

Alex: Millie Bobby Brown. Thank you. Good grief. After Millie Bobby Brown complained that they don’t have the balls to kill off characters completely, there there’s no way they’re bringing him back. But I loved. I loved that character.

Josh: Wow. Nice for you, Millie. You know you’re safe.

Jacob: Yeah you’re Eleven!

Josh: Your position is secured!

Alex: You just killed-

Josh: -these people’s jobs. Yeah. It’s not like they’re going to pay him a severance package.

Alex: So this character steps out. I’m like, OK, this is weird, whatever. And I tell my therapist that this person has stepped out and this is what it looks like. He’s like, cool, great, awesome. Ask him what his name is. I’m like, what are you talking about? This is ridiculous. But in my head, I’m like, OK, what’s your name? And what I feel like I hear is like chuckling. Stoner. I’m like, what the crap? No, no, no, no, no. First, first off, the sensation of hearing that at all was absolutely bizarre because I knew it came from in my mind, but did not come from me. Huh. But I’m like, no, your name cannot be Stoner. That doesn’t make any sense. I’ve never used recreational drugs of any kind. Why would there be a subpersonality named Stoner inside of me? What is your name? And after a little while, he finally relented and said, Steve. So I told my therapist that his name was Stoner Steve. And he’s like, awesome. Writing that down.

Josh: Just so weird.

Jacob: So good.

Josh: Since you remember him looking like Eddie, but his name didn’t come out as Eddie.

Alex: Not exactly.

Josh: But enough for you to make that connection, you know. But like it’s a totally non connected name.

Alex: Honestly, yes, this gets a little bit weird and might be uncomfortable for people in the family. I don’t know. Honestly, I think it might be Uncle Steve. But dressed like he was an 80s-

Jacob: Glam rocker.

Alex: -glam rock fan. Which he might have been. I don’t know. So he my therapist says, ask him how old he is. Ask him how old he thinks you are. And some other questions. And I ask him these things, none of which he doesn’t know how old I am. He doesn’t know where I’m at in life.

Josh: That’s weird.

Alex: He thinks I’m stuck back in this memory, basically, which is probably to be expected. That’s when he’s splintered off from the core is when I was about that age.

Jacob: That’s his only frame of reference of time.

Alex: And he’s been busy with other things. He’s he asks me to ask him what his job used to be, because something I haven’t explained yet is these sub personalities are not just ethereal personalities. They were a part of your original functionality as a human being. They had a purpose. They they are literally a part of you. And since losing that personality, that part of your functionality has diminished. So I ask him and he says, I’m your smarts, man. Like, OK, can you be a little more specific? That could mean a few things. He’s like, you know what I’m talking about. I mean, your ability to make connections between things that seem like they’re not related, but totally are. I mean, your ability to learn things because that was how you learned things was making these weird connections. I’m your smarts. I’m your intelligence. And I was like, yeah, I guess I do know what you mean. So, you know, I tell my therapist, you’re always telling your therapist all of these interactions. I’m supposed to thank him for everything that he’s done for me. Show him a lot of appreciation and love and compassion and ask him if this new job is really what he wants to be doing. And it’s not it’s never what these sub personalities want to be doing.

Josh: They don’t get paid enough.

Alex: Yeah. No one ever. They don’t, like their job is to stay hidden. You know, it’s like a media tech.

Josh: You can’t get promoted. You just get yelled at.

Alex: Which is why the the whole model is called internal family systems, because principles of family therapy apply to these personalities within you. It’s absolutely bizarre.

Josh: Oh. I was wondering about that. OK.

Alex: You need to be basically you need to be like the older sibling or the dad or the mom and love these parts, lead them when they need it, which we’ll get to in a little bit.

Jacob: It’s wild.

Alex: So I’m thinking, you know, blah, blah, blah. We end the session. In another session, we ask Steve if he could introduce me to another part that he knows. Oh, by the way, for anybody that’s really interested in all of this, the book on IFS written by the doctor that came up with it is called No Bad Parts or No Bad Part. I can’t remember which. I think his name is Schwartz.

Jacob: I’ve watched some videos on YouTube now, and he always refers to them as parts.

Alex: Yeah. Parts. Mm hmm. Steve, I’m back in that hallway, basically, with Steve, and he kind of holds out his hand and this little kid comes out into the hallway. He looks like he’s between four and six years old. He’s wearing a pale blue onesie footy pajama type thing and has a teddy bear. And Steve kind of puts his arm around him as the kid like sort of hugs his leg. I’m like, what the freak? This is so weird.

Josh: Steve, when did you get a family?

Alex: When the trauma happened to me, that’s when he got a family. So I ask this little kid all of the same questions I asked Steve. His name is Patrick.

Jacob: Patrick.

Alex: Don’t know why. He’s a very sad, pitiful little guy. He thinks he’s six years old. He thinks I’m six or seven. He doesn’t know which. And he was the part of me that saw everybody as a friend in potentia. I used to when I was a lot younger. I didn’t look at people the same way I look at them now. Literally, everyone was just a friend that I didn’t know yet. I guess you could say I was a lot like Chris Traeger Parks and Rec.

Josh: Anne Perkins!

Alex: In that in that regard, anyway.

Jacob: Are these parts the age that you were when the trauma that they’re associated to happen?

Alex: Yeah. So I don’t know for a fact. That’s what makes it.

Jacob: So was Steve like a teenager?

Alex: Steve was 17 and thought I was 14.

Jacob: Thought you were 14. How interesting.

Alex: He specifically wanted to be a little older than me. To be like, which is why, which is why my mind thought this is Eddie Munson, because all of his friends were younger than him. And he felt a need to like take care of them and teach them.

Jacob: And yeah. OK.

Josh: And he’s a manager slash protector.

Alex: Correct.

Josh: So that makes sense.

Alex: Yeah. This little guy, Patrick, he’s a firefighter. He’s the part of me. So he was the part of me that wanted to be friends with everybody. You might say he’s my charity. But his current job was he was basically the part of me saying, this is too much. It’s time to kill yourself. Just a very unwise, juvenile, illogical response. To what’s going on.

Jacob: Just a kid who doesn’t have any other ways to handle things.

Alex: So, yeah, it’s time to make this all stop. Which I’ve come to learn now after getting into the exile that they’re part of a family with that a lot of my anxiety just in general came from Patrick. But-

Jacob: So these two are two our partners.

Alex: Yeah.

Jacob: He’s the manager there and the firefighter for the same exile.

Alex: As far as I understand so far, there’s still a lot I don’t understand, because as I said, we don’t get to talk about the science of all of this and how it really works. You’re in a family system. That’s it. You don’t really know other systems. I might be wrong about that.

Josh: Like on a memory by memory basis or emotion by emotion basis?

Alex: The problem with PTSD is that it’s like a concussion. You get PTSD and other experiences in life later that shouldn’t necessarily be traumatic are traumatic. So you you have a bad enough trauma to begin with. And future things-

Jacob: You’re more prone,.

Alex: -a lot easier to be traumatized-

Jacob: Oh, wow.

Alex: -In the future.

Jacob: That’s another unfortunate response.

Alex: And that’s because of these personalities. They’re just like primed for like, oh, that’s not good. I need to do something about that. Where if they weren’t there to begin with, that reaction wouldn’t be there. And that less traumatic memory might not have been traumatic at all. Interesting. I think that’s when you’re dealing with CPTSD, complex post-traumatic stress disorder. So we talked to Patrick and I’m trying to ask him to please stop what he’s doing. I appreciate everything he’s done. You have to go in with a lot of appreciation and thankful.

Josh: What has he done?? What has that guy done? I’m sorry.

Alex: He’s had good intentions of trying to keep me safe from pain, even if it was really destructive and hurtful. But he was doing his best.

Jacob: I’m sure you thank him for the main function that he had been performing up to that point, too, right? Like you were so good at making me friendly.

Alex: I actually know I haven’t done any of that.

Jacob: Remind them how good they were at their job!

Alex: I have done that later. When it was time to start really winning them over. But at this point, I’m like, I know you care. It’s it’s been great that you’ve been caring and doing your best. Would you mind, please, not doing this anymore and maybe returning to your old job? And he’s like, Oh, I don’t know if I can do that. I got it. This is a big deal. OK, well, I really appreciate it if you stopped.

Josh: Your way of going about things is kind of counterproductive there, bud.

Alex: But yeah, but that’s kind of the response to be expected until the exile has been healed.

Jacob: Oh, right, right, right. Because they can’t stop until-

Alex: Mm hmm. Y

Jacob: Yeah. OK.

Alex: In another session, I decide that I want to try moving on to a different network or a different family system. What I think in my head is a different family system. And I think this because I don’t know who the exile involved with these two really is. I think I do, but I don’t. And I oh, right. We asked Steve what he thought I needed in life. And he said that I needed more music. So in another session, I said, OK, let’s maybe try leaving them alone. And I have huge anxiety when it comes to practicing at home. I just can’t do it.

Josh: Which I remember you getting a mute for your trumpet.

Alex: A couple of years ago?

Josh: No. At home.

Alex: Oh, well, I mean, you just have a mute because sometimes the music calls for a mute.

Jacob: It’s a different function. It doesn’t just make it quieter.

Josh: It is to make it quiter!

Alex: It’s to change the sound entirely. It does make it quieter. But I think the point of it is the sound it makes, it really changes the the timbre of the instrument. Larissa did get me a practice mute, an electric practice mute that has a microphone inside. And really, it doesn’t mute everything, but it makes it a lot quieter. And somehow you have this thing plugged into a tiny little analog, digital, digital, analog converter.

Josh: Oh, ADC.

Alex: Yes, a DAC. Yeah. Digital analog converter. And it’s able to take the weird sound that that microphone is probably hearing and turn it into totally naturally sounding trumpet and add a couple of different types of reverb to it. So if you want to sound like you’re in a really big hall, you can. If you want to sound like you’re in a practice room, you can. But it wasn’t enough. I thought that would fix everything. No one’s going to hear me practice. It’s great. But no, there’s just this anxiety I can’t overcome. So I’m like, OK, let’s let’s figure this out. If I need more music, let’s figure this out so I can play the trumpet again. And we go to a memory. We list out emotions. He says, go after this emotion. I focus on it and another figure comes out, but it’s a lot more nebulous. I can’t really see much of anything. Something in my brain says that this is that this might be a girl that I knew in high school. And so I ask, is this your name?

Jacob: In band, right?

Alex: Yeah. That I know in band. I ask, is this your name? And she doesn’t talk with words like Steve did.

Josh: They never do.

Jacob: Josh….

Alex: OK, so that’s another part. And I thought she was in a different network. It turns out she’s in the same network as these other guys.

Jacob: Oh, is she do you know her role yet?

Alex: So she is now the part of me that makes me feel anxiety over practicing to protect me from being judged for practicing because practice always sounds bad.

Jacob: So she the exile?

Alex: No, no. She’s she makes me feel the anxiety that protects the exile.

Jacob: Sorry

Alex: To keep me from practicing. So he doesn’t. So I don’t have to end up.

Jacob: So she’s a firefighter?

Alex: No, no, because she she doesn’t react to the exile feeling pain. She keeps the exiles and feeling the pain. OK, OK. I know it’s hard to keep straight. But she was the part of me that connected my creativity with my emotions that brought my emotions into my creativity, which is probably why I can’t do a lot of creativity without just crying anymore. Like I go from zero to 100 real fast.

Josh: You’ve been on point with Minecraft, though. Have you been crying while you’re playing Minecraft?

Alex: No, No.

Josh: It’s just so beautiful!

Alex: Because it’s emotionless. That’s emotionless creativity.

Josh: Okay. I mean, mine isn’t, but I understand.

Alex: Yeah, if she were more integrated, I think I’d probably be able to put more emotion into like, I don’t know, when I sing at church or, you know, other things without not being able to handle it at all and just crying, which still happened even when she was probably integrated. But anyway, so that was another part this Friday. A couple of days.

Jacob: Yes. Yes.

Alex: I say, I don’t know what I want to do. And he’s like, well, you feel good about Steve and Patrick. And how will you know them? Like, yeah, I do, actually. Oh, a quick and weird anecdote that has helped me gain more of a relationship with Steve. Larissa and I were out for a walk and I see some flowers and I’m thinking out loud, man, I used to know what those flowers were called. I really like them. And Larissa says, well, why don’t you ask Steve? And so Larissa is my wife. So it’s OK. How about it, Steve? What’s it called? And immediately the answer came, Laetrice Picatta. And I immediately knew it was right, too. I had learned that in a class in college.

Josh: Which class was that?

Alex: Floral Design.

Josh: Floral Design. OK. Just wanted to get that out there.

Jacob: Hey. two out of the three of us took it. So.

Josh: Yep. Wanted to get that out there, too. Okay.

Alex: Yeah. I mercilessly made fun of Jacob for taking that class. I was a different person and I feel really bad about it now.

Josh: I still feel great.

Alex: I don’t love everything about that person I used to be. But yeah, it was a fun class. I don’t remember most of the flower names anymore, though.

Josh: Yet.

Alex: But that that one could come. It’s true. If I can fully integrate Steve back into my mind, maybe I’ll remember a lot more. That’s my hope anyway. Yeah, I feel like I’ve been getting dumber and dumber for quite a few years now. So I’m hoping that with that, but.

Jacob: Before you go full blown, full blown Jim Carrey on us.

Alex: So I say, yeah, I think I feel comfortable with these guys and he’s like, well, do you want to see if they’ll let you talk to the exile today? I was like, oh, snap. OK. Yeah. Let’s let’s try it.

Josh: Hold on let me get my Game face on.

Alex: Why not? Let’s try it. So I get back to where I can see and talk to Steve and Patrick, and I’m asking them how they feel about me talking to the exile. Do they have any questions about what might happen? They were both cool with it. So I find that that sensation again, that feeling based on that emotion, follow it to the end of that hallway. And I find the exile and I’m not going to get into the imagery because I feel like it’s a little too intense. But this part doesn’t have a different name. They just say they’re Alex, which is apparently pretty normal. And it does look like me a little different, but I’m not going to get into it. And my therapist asked me where he is and he says, can you get down there with him? So I already was. So I said, I already am. He says, OK, will he let you hold him again? This is all about like family therapy stuff. It feels weird to be doing it with yourself, honestly. But I think the weirdest thing of all is that they don’t feel like they’re coming from you. These parts, they really do feel distinct and different. And like they have their own minds, but that they really are a part of you. At the same time, it’s a very, very surreal. It’s hard to explain. Anyway, I’m holding this part and my therapist asks, like I ask him all the same questions, age, what he’s doing, what he was doing. He was my imagination and creativity. That’s what he was doing for me. But he took the wound to keep me safe. My therapist asks if I can see the wound or ask him to show me the wound. So he does show me. And it’s this almond or narrow football shaped wound right at the sternum, right where I felt that emotion that led me. Yeah, it was really weird. It was just like this open wound. It didn’t really look like it was like bloody or anything. It more looked like a hole, like a black void. And my therapist tells me to ask him where he wants to go to be healed, and he wants to go to my high school band room. So so we go there and he wants my old band director, Mr. Pham, in his office while we’re doing this. And I tell my therapist that and he’s like, I was just about to ask if he was going to ask for any assistance of any kind. He tells me to ask him what he needs to be healed. How does he want to be healed? And apparently normal answers are water, fire, light, things of that nature. But I knew that wasn’t going to be it. I kind of knew right away what he wanted. He wanted me to put the bell of my trumpet over the wound and play a solo that I had my senior year. That solo was in a song written after. I can’t remember which school shooting incident he wanted to create a song to heal that community. I think it was Columbine.

Josh: I think that was the one.

Alex: So the song is called An American Elegy.

Josh: Oh, I know that song.

Alex: He went to the high school. He talked to people. He wanted to use part of their fight song, the high school’s fight song in the song. They didn’t have one. So he wrote them one and then put it in bits and pieces into the the final song. There are a few solos in it, two trumpet solos, both of which I had. One is barely a solo at all. It’s a single note that I mean, it is a solo. It stands out above everyone, but it’s pretty fleeting. There is an oboe solo that is actually I think there’s only one oboe solo. The oboe solo is supposed to be a sibling of someone who died in the shooting, praying to ask if their sibling is OK now. You know, like, are they in heaven? Are they safe? Are they happy? Are they OK? And the second trumpet solo is the response, and it is supposed to be played off stage. It gives it this omnidirectional and also distant sound. It was a difficult thing for me. I felt a lot of pressure just because of that imagery. It was a very meaningful solo for me. That’s what this part wanted me to do, to heal it. So I go to my locker, I get out my trumpet, put the bell right over the wound, I play the solo. And it heals him like I don’t know how to describe it, really. It just it just does. And he’s happy. He’s smiling. I ask him if he can feel safe going back to what he was doing before. And he says that he’s going to, you know, give it a shot. He’ll do what he can. And I bring everyone else in to the memory, the Steve and Patrick and family hug. That’s what he told me to do. But it was high fives.

Josh: I was going to say and Pham is backing up like, uhhh.

Alex: No, Pham was more like he wasn’t really there. He was-

Jacob: In his office you said.

Alex: It was it was more like, it was it was it was more like a like a warding spell. And he was just he was there and that made him feel safe. But high fives all around. Everybody’s happy. We’re going to we’re going to get back to work doing what we’re supposed to be doing. And life is life has felt very different since then. But you kind of expect like this beam of light on your life. That’s like, oh, I feel so magical. And that’s not really what it feels like. It feels it does feel way better, but it’s normal because these are your parts. They’re just getting back to work. It feels normal, but different at the same time.

Josh: Maybe like a little more capacity. In certain areas.

Alex: Yeah.

Jacob: Fogs removed.

Alex: And like almost an entire lack of anxiety. So far.

Jacob: Geeze. That would be amazing.

Alex: And I thought it would be startling and like how it have these really positive feelings constantly welling up inside of me. But I don’t. It just feels totally cool. Totally normal. So far, you know, it’s only been a couple of days.

Jacob: Yeah

Josh: I think I think that’s a I think that’s a testament to what really is the reality of like the principles line up online, precept upon precept. Like there aren’t- or it’s almost like the big revelatory type moments are fleeting. Like it’s not a persistent benefit. And I think the long the lasting things are the ones that are just precipitously-

Jacob: Yeah.

Alex: Yeah. This this isn’t the like I said a little bit before, this isn’t the end of these parts, and it may not even be the end of the healing needed for these parts, because now that the exile is healed, there may be some EMDR work that needs to be done to help process some of the memories that caused the trauma in the first place. Really help kind of put it to bed. And yeah, they don’t cause the memories to get stuck. Right. But they can keep you from processing those memories anyway. They can get in the way of your EMDR, which is why these two systems often go together.

Jacob: So have you done anything creative in the last two days since the exile has been healed?

Alex: I cooked all day on Saturday, the day after. I was really anxious about it. So from time to time, I like- Larissa and I like to have siblings, parents over for a four or five course Italian style meal. Still haven’t had you guys over yet. I struggle with the vegetarian menu.

Josh: Oh, I mean, I would pressure you into just making us something, but it’s been hard to get away from any of the kids. Or all the kids.

Alex: Right. But, you know, mom and dad are in town now, so hopefully they’d be able to do babysitting for you at some point. Yeah. Larissa got me a book that’s considered like the American Bible on Italian cooking, but it’s not just about Italian cooking. It’s about Italian food as an experience. It’s how you design a menu correctly, where all the dishes have some connecting theme between them, whether that’s an ingredient or the season that the ingredients come from, which is normally how Italians cook anyway.

Josh: Please tell me it’s risotto.

Alex: Oh, I can totally make you guys a risotto. I was planning on doing a mushroom risotto, but then you said more mushrooms. Vegetarians eat so many mushrooms. I’m trying to mushroom.

Josh: Ew they do.

Alex: “Can it be tofu?”

Josh: Oh, no, I hate tofu!

Alex: Oh ok. Yeah. So we were going to have we had Larissa’s a pair of Larissa’s siblings over sister and brother in law over on Saturday for her half birthday. And they’re big foodies. These guys travel a lot. He’s a producer now. He was in Italy not too long ago, like doing some location scouting.

Josh: Oh, interesting.

Alex: For a movie. I’m like, oh, great. And and he really knows how to cook, too. There are a lot of things that he cooks really well. So I was like, freaking crap. This is this is stressful.

Jacob: Pressure.

Alex: I planned a menu that I thought was going to be amazing. And I thought I totally had it in the bag. I did not. But I was really anxious until that session. I was like, no worries, bro. I got this. I tried to make ???? for the first time. Did not go well. I should have been panicking. I didn’t. I just said this isn’t working, so we’re going to skip this course. And it doesn’t matter what else I made. Everything else after that was really good. And it was really fun.

Jacob: And anxious free.

Alex: Yeah. Anxiety free. Anxiety free. But standing on the hard kitchen floor all day for those six hours with four of the hours being really intense in the kitchen, juggling all of the dishes, cooking at the same time, juggle dishes. You’re going to try to keep everything cooking at the same time. But so that this finishes at the right time. And then we can just move into this course while also trying to chat with everybody. And-

Josh: oh, they were over. They were over while you’re-

Alex: We put this table in the kitchen to have like a chef’s table kind of experience where I’m cooking and talking with everybody at the same time. We’re drinking apple and grape Martinelli’s eating bread when there’s nothing. No other dish on the table at the time, which is what you’re supposed to do it. You’re supposed to take two hours at least to eat and chat and just let things cook well. And while they’re cooking, you’re talking, you’re chatting, you’re enjoying yourselves.

Jacob: You experience the whole thing.

Josh: Apperetivo.

Alex: That’s like an opener. Yeah, I did that for six hours. I really enjoyed it, even though it was also really stressful. But the stress was just the stress was only I want to make something really good for you guys. Not if I don’t make something really good for you guys, you’re going to hate me and I’m going to die.

Jacob: Yeah. Because most people would have stress in a situation like this anyway.

Alex: Right.

Jacob: So it’s getting back to a more normal, emotional state.

Alex: Normal stress. Yeah. Normal. Not anxiety. Not anxiety.

Jacob: And I was telling Lizzie the other day, I feel like this is something she needs to explore. That’s for her to decide obviously.

Alex: Right. Yeah. She’s totally aware of it. Like she’s she’s talked to people that have done it besides me. It kind of freaks her out a little bit.

Jacob: She seemed she seemed more open and receptive.

Alex: She did recently ask me where I go for this. For the for IFS. So hopefully she’ll she’s looking into it. I think probably.

Jacob: Audrey, Heather’s sister. You know, she’s a marriage and family therapy therapist. She she practices IFS. She loves it. It’s good stuff. It really is. She loves EMDR, but she hasn’t been able to, like, get certified or take courses on that yet. But she thinks they’re amazing therapies.

Alex: Like, I can’t believe it’s been a little more than a month, and I’m already seeing huge gains in in in healing. Like I was doing CBT for over a decade. And didn’t get this much.

Jacob: The strides you’re taking now.

Alex: Which is not anything wrong with CBT. It’s just it wasn’t the right treatment for what was going on for me.

Josh: And maybe it was right at the time. And it like, you know, helped prepare your mental landscape.

Alex: Yeah it helped sustain me. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. It did. Yeah. It did open my mind a lot.

Josh: Because a part of me wonders, too, like, so the first things you’re unlocking. I don’t know how to speak clinically. Are centered on creativity. And you’ve been very creativity focused in the last few months.

Alex: That’s true. That might have something to do with that.

Josh: So I wonder if that helped prime the pump and everything.

Jacob: Honestly, your entire life also, though.

Alex: My- Yeah.

Jacob: I mean, I know STEM has always been close to you, too. But your creativity, I mean, the pottery-

Alex: And I never really saw it that way.

Jacob: See that’s funny.

Alex: But I had a CBT therapist for most of that decade of CBT therapy I’ve done who said, if you’re not doing something creative with your life, it’s kind of a waste of your life. And I was like, what? Really?

Josh: Geez, dude, read the room.

Alex: No, I just I never would have thought about it that way, probably because my creativity was locked away as an exile. And other people can see it, but I can’t because he’s exiling himself. He’s hiding himself. On purpose.

Jacob: Yeah. It’s always been clear to me.

Alex: So, yeah, I mean, the speed with which I’ve gotten this healing does have a lot to do with the fact that this network, for whatever reason, this family system was more open to healing. That is not always the case. Some of them are going to be-

Jacob: A lot more resistant.

Alex: -a lot more shut down. You never know. Yeah. The end.

Josh: Wait wait wait. We have to end in laughter.

Alex: No, we don’t.

Josh: Yes, we do!

[01:07:17] Another Brother Outro