Rhett Smith Podcast

One of the most common questions I get is about what marriage book I might recommend. That is a tough question in some ways because there are so many books out there, and every person responds to a certain book differently. So it's hard to be too prescriptive on this topic. But I can tell you there are about 7 books that I recommend a lot, and have been recommending for a long time. And the reason I recommend these books is because they have not only transformed my life and marriage, but they are the books that couples consistently report as being the most helpful and life-transforming for them. So in this episode I briefly talk about these 7 books. Each book is pretty different from each other. Some are Christian and faith based in their approach, while others don't come with any faith perspective. Some are pretty prescriptive in their approach, listing out steps and tools to use in your marriage, while others take a more philosophical and theological approach, but it's up to the reader to figure out how and

Last week I had the privilege of speaking to one of my favorite groups...MOPS. In this case it was the MOPS group at First Baptist Frisco which is an awesome group I have had the opportunity to speak to before (as well as their MOMSnext group). And as I was thinking about what topic to speak to them about, I started thinking about what season of life most of these moms find themselves in. It's tiring. It's busy. There is lots of new expectations, and that can sometimes be coupled with depression or anxiety. And in the midst of this, there is a marital relationship that they are trying to navigate along with all the challenges of being a new mom, or adding more kids to the family. And they might be in a marriage where their spouse is or isn't engaged in not only the life of the new baby and kids, but may or may not be engaged in the marriage as well.   That being said, it's a crucial time for marriages. And a lot of marriages tend to drift during this season, and those who are lucky course correct, and those w

Last weekend I had the humbling opportunity to speak at the first ever Restoration Therapy Conference which was held at Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA. When the founder of the model, Dr. Terry Hargrave asked med to present on anxiety and the Restoration Therapy model, I knew it was an invitation that I couldn't refuse. I consider Dr. Hargrave not only a mentor, but also a friend, so I definitely wanted to participate in anything he was doing. But I also knew I would be anxious for several months leading up to my presentation. And I was. But it was a great time to be with a bunch of other therapists and researches who are on the ground floor in the ongoing development of the Restoration Therapy model.   I won't go into details in this post since you will hear more in this episode. But I've been using Restoration Therapy as my primary therapeutic model since about 2010 when I was first exposed to it co-leading marriage intensives at The Hideaway Experience in Amarillo, TX. I did not know the model as Resto

Last weekend I had the humbling opportunity to speak at the first ever Restoration Therapy Conference which was held at Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA. When the founder of the model, Dr. Terry Hargrave asked med to present on anxiety and the Restoration Therapy model, I knew it was an invitation that I couldn't refuse. I consider Dr. Hargrave not only a mentor, but also a friend, so I definitely wanted to participate in anything he was doing. But I also knew I would be anxious for several months leading up to my presentation. And I was. But it was a great time to be with a bunch of other therapists and researches who are on the ground floor in the ongoing development of the Restoration Therapy model.   I won't go into details in this post since you will hear more in this episode. But I've been using Restoration Therapy as my primary therapeutic model since about 2010 when I was first exposed to it co-leading marriage intensives at The Hideaway Experience in Amarillo, TX. I did not know the model as Resto

One of the most common questions I get outside of my office (via Facebook, Twitter, email, etc.) is, "What can I do if I struggle with anxiety?" Or often they are asking for someone they know and care about, "What can I do to help someone with anxiety?"   I have to caution and say that there is not a one size fits all answer to this question.   But generally speaking there are 4 things that I tell that person that we can do: I help them see that anxiety is completely normal. There is nothing wrong with you for struggling with anxiety. That may seem obvious to many of you, but for many, having anxiety is like carrying around a scarlet letter on their chest in their community. So I try to normalize the experience for them. I help that person identify some tools and resources that will help them manage and or reduce their currently level of distress with anxiety. I find this to be an important step that allows us to move to the next thing. I help that person identify and work on the root issue that is driving t

When I was in my early 30's I was fortunate enough to have a really great Marriage and Family Therapy supervisor in D. Michael Smith. He was actually one of many early great mentors I had and supervisors as I pursued my license as a therapist. But one day while I was in a supervision session with him, and I was feeling particularly stuck with a client, he took out a piece of paper and began to write some questions down.   He told me that he believed that every person is essentially asking these 4 questions at each new stage in their life (and potentially are questions that are constantly at one's top of mind). As he began to write I was super eager to see what these important questions were. He put the piece of paper between us and I began to look at the questions with him. The questions were: Who am I? What am I to do? How am I to be loved? How do I become all that God created me to be? Essentially, they are questions of identity, vocation, relationship, and purpose/calling. And these questions are intimat

  “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” Soren Kierkegaard That quote by Soren Kierkegaard in his work The Concept of Anxiety, has always been one of my favorite quotes. I think it truly captures the hear of anxiety for many...In that being free, creative beings who are responsible for our lives and the choices and directions we take...that freedom creates a lot of anxiety for many. In this episode I explore the varied definitions and meanings of anxiety from the clinical to the biblical, to the existential. Please listen and subscribe to my podcast in the following places, and then leave a comment letting me know what you liked about the show, or what guest you would like to hear from. Thank you so much for your support. iTunes -- Stitcher Player FM -- Libsyn   Link to Episode 76 Resources and People Mentioned in the Episode The Concept of Anxiety by Sorek Kierkegaard The Meaning of Anxiety by Rollo May be not anxious by Allan Hugh Cole Jr. The Anxious Christian by Rhett Smith

One of the populations I love working with in my practice is athletes. I've been fortunate enough to work with a large variety of athletes from professionals to amateur, from middle school kids all the way up to a middle aged runner like me. And in my time with athletes several themes around athletics have emerged that tend to be the central focus of our counseling time together.     Those are: performance anxiety anxiety and stress due to pressure from overbearing parents depression from not achieving an athletic goal or from not being able to participate in the sport because of injury. training the athlete for more positive self-talk and visualization to increase performance.   These 4 issues seem to crop up the most and I have had a lot of success using the Restoration Therapy model developed by Terry Hargrave. Even though I initially used it only with couples I have expanded it's use to individuals, families, organizations, and now athletes. I feel that it's core tenets, especially the importance of emo

So if your day was anything like my wife and I's yesterday, it involved walking our kids into their first day of school this year. My daughter starts 4th grade, and my son starts Kindergarten. And like many of you, we are in a new transition as we begin a new school year. One filled with excitement, anxieties, fears, joys, ups and downs, and all kinds of emotions in between there.   After dropping my kids off at school I spent some time thinking about this particular transition in life and about all the kids I have had the privilege to work with over the last 20+ years...sometimes as a camp counselor, youth pastor, and therapist. And one of the things that I thought about the most was all the expectations we have as parents when our kid starts off a new school year. Sometimes our expectations are appropriate ones, and other times if we are honest with ourselves, the expectations might have more to do with us, than our kids. But guess what, our kids also start off the school year with expectations of their own

I have the great privilege of working with couples in my office on a daily basis. Some come to me before they are married, some within a few years of marriage, but the great majority of them come to see me after a crisis that was indicative of the marital drift in their life. In Episode 19 of my podcast I talked about marital drift and the kid centered marriage. But essentially what often happens in relationships is that couples set out with good intentions to care for and love each other...to make each other priority. In fact, it was often that feeling of being a priority in dating that led to engagement and marriage.   But over the course of the marriage couples often make sacrifices that hurt the marriage and leave one or both spouses not often feeling like a priority. I see this most often in couples that just got busy. They had kids...the kids got busy with sports and activities...and the marriage drifted. Then one day they wake up, perhaps 5, 10, 15, 20 years later, and are so disconnected that they don

One of the things that I've noticed a lot about relationships and conflict, is that a lot of it tends to happen in periods of daily transition. For example, conflict tends to arise when people are leaving the house in the morning, or coming home later in the day. Whether it's a spouse, roommate, or child, there tends to be a lot of missed expectations in those two periods of the day. Maybe it's the rushed chaos that often accompanies those periods (i.e. rushing kids off to school, coming home after a long chaotic day at work, etc.) of the day, or maybe it's that we have ideas in our head about how things are going to look. For example, I might have the expectation that when I come home from work that my wife and kids are excited to see me and greet me as I come in the door...if that doesn't happen, I may become disappointed and that could lead to conflict. Or maybe my wife has been working all day and running around with the kids since school's been out and she has the expectation that I will walk in the door

I'm not quite exactly sure of the origin of learning about this communication technique, but I know it must have morphed together from all of my training and experience as a therapist...so I'm sure it has it's roots in varying theorists, I just can't place it right now. But in my time as a therapist I was used to hearing couples talking about all the things that weren't working well in the relationship. And most often it would come across in the form of criticism. Some spouse would be sharing all the things that their partner wasn't doing. And you can imagine what that was doing to the relationship...you can imagine what kind of pain cycle that was creating.   So I started thinking about what it would look like to share with your spouse not all the things they were doing wrong, but rather, the things they desired and wanted and needed in the relationship. Why not focus on the positives (what you want and desire), rather than the negatives (all they weren't doing right). This subtle (maybe it's not so subtle)

This has been an incredibly difficult political season, in that it highlights the deep divisions among one another along racial, sexual, economical, and political lines....just to name a few.   And one thing I have been struggling with the most is to try and remind myself of how I talk about people that believe different than me. Because how I talk about them or their beliefs (if I do at all), will determine whether or not we can be in relationship with one another...and hopefully learn and grow from the mutual relationship.   But what happens most often is that we end up using exclusionary language (they, them, those people) that actually create more division and destroy the possibility of any relationship, rather than using inclusionary and embracing language (I, you, we, us) that pulls us closer to one another. And without the relationship, no progress can be made. It's the relationship that makes it safe for us to work through our ideas with one another, and to be challenged, and to grow. When it is unsaf

I first heard of Anne Marie Miller when she was actually Anne Jackson, and she was blogging under the name Flowerdust. This was probably around 2006/2007 or so (maybe earlier), and she had a very popular blog that talked a lot about ministry, leadership, and other faith related topics. What was different about her was her level of authenticity and vulnerability in her posts...and she was a woman writing on a topic that at that point was almost primarily dominated by men.   Eventually I was able to meet Anne in person at a theology/technology conference that Biola University was holding (maybe back in 2007/2008--again, my dates are fuzzy), and we have remained good friends since then, often talking a lot about issues related to mental health such as anxiety and depression. In fact, about 7 years ago I interviewed Anne in a two part series on depression, burnout and ministry:   Depression, Burnout & Ministry: Anne Jackson Interview, Part 1 Depression, Burnout & Ministry: Anne Jackson Interview, Part 2

*Note: In this podcast I mention a social psychologist whom I couldn't remember. I realized that I was actually thinking of the work of Carol Dweck, but it wasn't actually her research I was referring to.   Recently I've been thinking a lot about a certain topic in parenting. And the topic revolves around how often we as parents use the "I am the parent" card in various forms or fashions. Sometimes we literally say that out loud, and other times we are just thinking it. You may have your own version, but I hear something to this effect quite a bit in my counseling sessions with parents and their adolescents.   And when I hear this statement (or some version of it) coming from a parent and said to their kid, what I essentially hear is, "What you have to say, think, believe, etc, doesn't matter." It basically cuts off any form of understanding or connection in that relationship, and I believe will eventually lead a kid to disrespect and rebel from their parents authority. Nothing communicates a lack of worth mo

Sunday was Father's Day. And like Mother's Day...it can bring up all kinds of emotions for people. Positive emotions. Negative Emotions. Feelings of joy and happiness, or anger and fear, as well as loss. And that's just to name a few. I am very thankful that I have a very amazing father. I posted on Instagram just all that he has meant to me, especially when I take into consideration that my mom died from breast cancer when I was 11, and my dad became a single parent to two boys. And the longer I am a parent, the more thankful that I am. This is my experience, but as I wrote at the outset, days like these can bring up all kinds of feelings for people. And so as I mention in this podcast episode, I want to acknowledge that.   In light of Father's Day this last week I want to talk about 3 important life giving messages that I first wrote about in my book, What It Means to Be a Man. In Chapter 3 on Fathering I quote Larry Crabb from his book The Silence of Adam. Crabb writes: "A godly father speaks three message

In my time on staff at the Hideaway Experience doing marriage intensives, my co-therapists and I had a few rules that we would often write out for the 4 couples on the their first day of intensive work. We found that having some guiding principles (rules) made the process more safe for everyone involved. And one of the rules that always stuck out to me was "Be curious vs. being judgemental". Pretty simple. We found that when spouses were curious about their partner, there were less likely to be in a posture of being critical or judgemental.   In fact, when someone is curious about you, it's probably likely you feel loved, valued, known...just to name a few truths. And so that principle has always stuck with me. And the more I started to think about it, it reminded me that I learned that principle about 15 years ago in seminary by one of my favorite professors, Dr. Ray Anderson, who is now deceased. He told my class a beautiful story about he and his wife that I share in this podcast episode...a story which hi

In this episode I explore: the link between anger and depression. the different types of depression. different treatments for depression. reframing depression. Please listen and subscribe to my podcast in the following places, and then leave a comment letting me know what you liked about the show, or what guest you would like to hear from. Thank you so much for your support. iTunes -- Stitcher Player FM -- Libsyn Resources Mentioned in the Episode NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Health NIMH: National Institute of Mental Health ADAA: Anxiety and Depression Association of America MAYO: Mayo Clinic TWLOHA: To Write Love on Her Arms (self-harm, suicide) I Just Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression by Terence Real Unmasking Male Depression: Recognizing the Root Cause to Many Problems Such as Anger, Resentment, Abusiveness, Silence, Addictions, and Sexual Compulsiveness by Archibald Hart A Women’s Guide to Overcoming Depression by Archibald Hart and Catherine Hart Weber A

I've noticed over the last few months a growing anger and frustration within me. This has been very disheartening. Because I think if you were to ask my close friends and family, the word anger and frustration wouldn't typically be associated with me. But maybe that's my own lack of insight.   But in this time I've realized several things about what has been going on. One, I have been doing a horrible job of self-care, which leaves me little ability to regulate and manage my emotions in a healthy way. Two, my wife and I are in an incredibly challenging stage of life (like all of you), as we try to adjust to new challenges as our kids get older and work brings about a new level of busyness. Three, the most important lesson I've learned is not what I think of myself or how others may perceive me...but what those closest to me think. Those closest to me have the greatest experience with what my true self is in varying moments...and because of that, they are often on the front lines of helping me better understan

I've been talking about Sabbath in the last couple of podcast episodes (Episode 61: Sabbath Rest and Your Identity, Episode 62: Sabbath Rest and Anxiety), and so I close the series in this episode talking about various practices. As I've come to learn more about Sabbath and practice various ways of being on that day, I realize that everyone's Sabbath may look differently. Ultimately, I believe the key is that Sabbath is a way of being, rather than doing, and so it's a day where we set aside our compulsion to have to do things, perform, be productive, etc, and we enjoy our relationship with God, others, and ourselves. In this episode I discuss: How to assess your busyness (i.e. "white space on the calendar"). Setting a day to practice Sabbath. Setting a time for your Sabbath practice. Asking yourself questions about what a practice of being vs. doing would look like. Allowing for the fact that your Sabbath will look different than other peoples. Expecting resistance as you fight the culture of consumption and