[00:00:00] Michael: Males, in general, love a good solution. They love a good solution and they’ll go away and do it because they want to fix it. The kind of problem that we might have is we might suggest solutions like having an ice bath or certain other modalities that we might like them to do.

 

[00:00:16] Michael: But we don’t consider asking men to sit with their emotions for as long as they can sit in an ice bath for. 

 

In today’s episode, you’ll learn why addressing shame is crucial for men’s mental health and how emotional expression can lead to healing and connection. Welcome to another episode of our men’s mental health month series. It’s going a little over the month of June, but that’s okay. I had a lot of people to interview and I’m really excited. This provider provided so much content and it was such a fruitful endeavour. 

 

I learnt so much in my conversation around men’s mental health and we still have a few more episodes to go. So keep your eyes and ears open for those. I’m Maria Carcass, I’m your host, and we’re diving into the often uncomfortable but essential topic of shame and stigma in men’s mental health. Joining me is Michael, a family therapist and accredited mental health social worker who will help us understand some of the unique challenges that men face when seeking support. 

 

[00:01:07] Michael: So we know that there are kind of a number of problems and I imagine if someone has sought help before and hasn’t had the best experience, they’re going to be less likely to seek support again because they might just kind of tar everyone with the same brush.

 

[00:01:25] Michael: And so I think it’s really important to acknowledge that the relationship that you build with somebody when you’re getting support is key to them being able to, you know, sit in that ice bath for a couple more minutes with this discomfort and this pain. 

 

Michael will share insights with us around shame, some of the experiences that he has as a therapist and some of his insights on working with men with shame. I found this really fascinating. I think it’s been an incredible topic to discuss. As we know, this can be hard, but people can be overwhelmed or anxious about mental health services and seeking support around therapy, feelings, and all that stuff in general. 

 

So hopefully this episode clears up some of those misconceptions for you. 

 

[00:02:12] Michael: Basically, as a male, you’re often told to be strong. It can be very small situations where you’re told that you have to be strong, you know, don’t show emotion, which all can create shame if you do that.

 

[00:02:26] Michael: So you have to find the solution yourself and you have to come up with it yourself to make sure that you are able to get through that time. So I imagine some males who are listening may feel that they have to solve everything themselves and aren’t good at reaching out for help. 

 

Together, Michael and I unpack some of these issues and provide some practical strategies for overcoming shame, building healthy relationships, and how to find a therapist that maybe is a good fit for you. I hope you enjoyed this episode of “This Complex Life.” 

 

[00:03:02] Marie: When we talk about men’s mental health, what is something that we tend to get wrong?

 

[00:03:07] Marie: Where do we, what do we do wrong? 

 

[00:03:09] Michael: Males, in general, love a good solution. They love a good solution and they’ll go away and do it because they want to fix it up. The kind of problem that we might have is we might suggest solutions like having an ice bath or certain other modalities that we might like them to do.

 

[00:03:26] Michael: But we don’t consider asking men to sit with their emotions for as long as they can sit in an ice bath for. That doesn’t have to be long. It can be two to three minutes. But I think with males and emotions, we often tend to overlook it. It’s like when you’re rehabbing a muscle injury, and there’s a muscle that’s in pain.

 

[00:03:47] Michael: Often physios and the like will look at muscles further up or into your back because that’s where the pain might actually be coming from. And I think sometimes with men, we miss where the foundation of the situation is or where the underlying problem actually is.

 

[00:04:06] Michael: So we might give solutions that take off the heat, which is great, but they won’t get to the core issue, which often will lead to, you know, how do we manage emotion? So yeah, I think that’s one of the main things we might miss is how do we do that and how do we do that tentatively and comfortably for males to sit with?

 

[00:04:27] Marie: I mean, that just sent chills down my spine because it is freezing today, but that’s a slogan there for anybody who’s listening: can you sit in your discomfort as long as you can sit in an ice bath? I think that’s quite confronting for some people. 

 

[00:04:42] Michael: Yeah. Yeah, it is. And you know, in 2020, there was a study in Australia where they surveyed 788 males about mental health and 77 percent said that they needed to solve their own problems. So that’s about 569 people from that survey who felt like they needed to solve their own problems. And then when we look at the barriers to accessing support, 80 percent from the same survey, so 618, believed that intense sadness or emotional pain they felt was normal.

 

[00:05:16] Michael: And then the same number, 80 percent, were unsure what to look for in a therapist if they were to get help. So we know that there are a number of problems and I imagine if someone has sought help before and hasn’t had the best experience, they’re going to be less likely to seek support again because they might just kind of tar everyone with the same brush.

 

[00:05:41] Michael: And so I think it’s really important to acknowledge that the relationship that you build with somebody when you’re getting support is key to them being able to sit in that ice bath for a couple more minutes with this discomfort and this pain. 

 

[00:05:56] Marie: Yeah, I love that. You know, not to paint everyone with the same brush.

 

[00:05:58] Marie: And for anyone who’s a Ted Lasso fan, I think there’s a scene in that where Ted doesn’t want to go back to therapy because he had one bad experience. And Coach Beard’s like, remember what you said once, all people are different people. And maybe we can have a chat at the end about if you’re going to seek help, how can you maybe filter through and weed out a few potential therapists that might not be a good fit and what to look for. So maybe we’ll come back around to that. 

 

The trying to fix it. What do you mean by that? Do you mean for each other, for themselves? How does that play out in the day-to-day things that you’ve observed?

 

[00:06:39] Michael: Yeah, for themselves, and I do this in my own relationship. I love to give a solution to my partner when they are complaining about something and not seeing an ice bath or something with the emotion, which they tell me off for. But basically, as a male, you’re often told to be strong. And it can be very small situations where you’re told that you have to be strong, you know, don’t show emotion, which all can create shame if you do that.

 

[00:07:05] Michael: So you have to find the solution yourself and you have to come up with it yourself to make sure that you are able to get through that time. So I imagine some males who are listening may feel that they have to solve everything themselves and aren’t good at reaching out for help. We know that in health, not even just mental health, but health studies show that too. So yeah, males can try and solve it themselves and if they don’t then they feel or could feel weak and that goes into shame. So the way that shame works is, shame and guilt are two different things. Guilt is “I did a bad thing” and shame is “I am a bad person”.

 

[00:07:47] Michael: The way shame works is that we have a collective as a society and we come up with rules and expectations. The reason why shame exists was to keep us safe and surviving as a tribe. So way back when Sabretooth Tigers were around, we needed to keep ourselves safe as a tribe and work collectively together to keep us safe from all the dangers that were out there.

 

[00:08:12] Michael: So we came up with these rules and then if we went against the rules, we would feel shame. Shame would stop us in our tracks and then get us to reconnect back to the tribe, back to the collective of what the themes and issues are. So for example, if we just take it outside men’s mental health for one minute, if we look at COVID times, we all had to wear a mask, especially when we went to a shopping centre.

 

[00:08:36] Michael: So that was a mandate by the government to keep us safe and a collective response. So if we were standing outside the shopping centre and we forgot our mask and went, geez, like, I’m just going to go and try and get in there. I imagine we would have felt a deep sense of shame. A deep sense of like, if I go in, then I’m a bad person, and then everyone will look at me, and then I’ll feel all

 

 yucky and horrible.

 

[00:08:58] Michael: So I’m not going to do that, so it stops the behaviour in its tracks, so I’m going to get a mask and I’m going to walk in. And that’s just a very small example of shame, but then when we pull it back to men’s mental health, the kind of collective as a society says, you’ve got to be strong, don’t be weak, don’t show emotions. And if you’re doing that, then you’re being kind of a real man, like that’s what people may perceive as a real man.

 

[00:09:24] Michael: So then to step outside that to ask for help might be weak, so then I might feel shame even just looking for help, because I should fix it, because that’s what I’ve been told I need to do. So shame in a very quick nutshell and how then it can impact us in behaviours and it just really then sets up the scene of when somebody walks in for support they may be just feeling shame by even coming to see a therapist.

 

[00:09:52] Marie: Wow. That’s such a, like, when you explain it like that, it seems like, well, that makes no sense, but you can see how you can really get caught up in that and the desire to belong, to be seen as valuable, to connect. It all comes from a place of wanting to be.

 

[00:10:12] Michael: Yeah, and then there might be two opposing forces of shame, so there might be a kind of a force of like, you’ve got to acknowledge your feelings, like, you know, there might be kind of a new movement now, like, you know, true men acknowledge their feelings, but then if I’m not acknowledging my feelings, then I feel shame. And if I do acknowledge my feelings, then I feel shame in that sense too. So it’s like a double whammy of shame. So I think as a society, we just need to be careful about what messaging we’re sending. We want to give to men around emotion and what that looks like. And particularly if, you know, if we think about going back generations, have people been taught about emotion and emotion coaching and what does that look like?

 

[00:10:49] Michael: And, you know, those messaging would have been deep from childhood around what men do and what men don’t do. And so it’s, you know, it has changed as we’ve developed, but there are pockets where it still can be very difficult and men can almost lose out sometimes in the emotions that they don’t want to acknowledge. And then when they don’t acknowledge it, then as you’re saying, you know, the placement of relationships and how does that look and what does that mean to them? 

 

[00:11:20] Marie: For those who’ve been listening to the whole series, you might recall an episode with Shannon where he talks about this idea of how the term toxic masculinity came about and it was in identifying that there’s nothing wrong with being strong and brave and courageous. That’s not all. It’s also being able to be sensitive and vulnerable and caring. And when we talk about toxic masculinity in that sort of clinical sense, it’s the absence of those other qualities that’s problematic.

 

[00:11:51] Marie: And both of us being kind of couples and family therapists, I’m sure you can see where this can impact a relationship. How it can create loneliness or disconnection for people with their loved ones. 

 

[00:12:08] Michael: Yep. Yep. And definitely the loneliness and disconnection. Some behaviours that I’ve seen have been, you know, when someone’s trying to do something good-willed and it’s actually doing the opposite and someone’s getting really frustrated at that behaviour. So we know that, you know, opposites attract and that sometimes maybe holding in emotion might be seen as they’re very stable and calm in situations. But then if we do too much of a good thing then we can’t, you know, it might impact the relationship that we have with others because we’re doing it too often, too much.

 

[00:12:44] Marie: I’ll share a story that has actually happened quite a few times in different forms, so I’ll make a vignette with it. But I’ve worked with many couples who’ve dealt with, and I’m talking more cisgender heterosexual couples, where the female partner has had either a failed IVF treatment or miscarriage and she’s devastated and visibly sad and distressed and potentially in a session talking about the grief of what she was looking forward to, what she was hoping for.

 

[00:13:13] Marie: And I’ve seen a lot of really great responses, but when I’ve seen it be an extra problem, the guy will just stop, kind of stare at me, and maybe hold her hand or give her a hug. But when I ask, “How are you?” they’re like, “I’m okay.” And when I speak to them individually, they’re trying to be strong. They’re trying to hold it together and don’t want to crumble, but to their partner, it comes across like they don’t care, that they weren’t excited about being a parent. The partner feels a little crazy, like, why am I the only one upset by this? Can you see, I mean, what’s your take on that sort of stuff? How does that show up in your work? 

 

[00:14:00] Michael: Yeah. Yeah. That definitely shows up and what I can hear is shame. I can just hear the male grappling with, how do I help my partner, and how am I emotionally? Because if I don’t know how to deal with emotion, then how am I supporting my partner to deal with this intense emotion? And it gets caught in the system. And as you’ve described, it comes off as either non-caring or just, and there’s not a change of affect. And it can be really shameful to cry. It can feel like that’s not okay. It can be really belittling for them because of past experiences and there’ll be a neural network behind all of that messaging that they’re getting and it can be really tough for them to navigate their own feelings and then navigate their partner’s feelings and how do they do that. Saying “I’m fine” is kind of saying I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to go there. Please don’t let me go there. Because it can keep them safe. Sometimes males have talked to me about feeling really overwhelmed with emotion and we talk about opening the door slowly or dipping our toe in slowly, not just like running in and like having a wave crash over us. But how do we gently just feel it? Can we feel it for two minutes and then just stop and then bring us back into the room? When I’ve had other males talk to me about things that they find distressing, and I can feel it, it’s coming, then they stop, and they’ll talk about that, they’ll regulate themselves by naming things in the room, because they’re just becoming too overwhelmed, or looking at a top I have that day, working out a colour, or looking at pictures on the walls and stuff. So yeah, the emotion can just be so overwhelming, and if we haven’t been taught from a young age how to manage our emotions and how to work with our emotions, then we’re kind of at a loss. It’s almost like saying to someone, I want you to cook an omelette, but I’m not really going to show you how to cook the omelette. I’m just going to say, you need to cook the omelette because everyone else here knows how to cook this omelette. And so people can get really lost in how to cook the omelette. 

 

[00:16:14] Marie: I love that you were saying that they can feel overwhelmed and I sometimes have to encourage people to even say that. So in that example I shared, even actually saying something like, “I don’t even know if I’m ready to accept this loss and I’m scared that if I start talking about it I’ll burst into tears and I’m just not ready for that yet.” Even being able to express a piece of that is so helpful for the other person.

 

[00:16:45] Michael: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Expressing what’s going on is really helpful, and I think, you know, there’s the Aussie saying, she’ll be alright, and we kind of get on. Sometimes some of that can go on, whereas we need to go back, and as you’re saying, express it, and name it, so that it’s not so overwhelming. Because, you know, there’s the saying, once you name it, you tame it. 

 

[00:17:09] Marie: As you were talking, I was thinking about some people not wanting to feel like a burden, so they’re so reluctant to seek help and when they even ask for a crumb, they feel that that’s somehow burdensome. Is that kind of linked to this idea as well around imposing on people or help-seeking, how does that fit into some of this?

 

[00:17:32] Michael: Yeah. Yeah. It can be that kind of messaging from earlier when we were little around maybe not getting enough emotional support, or if we do seek emotional support, then it’s too much or we’re overwhelming someone. So I imagine then when we’re trying to reach out for emotional support, it can be really hard, because it goes into that core belief of ours that if I ask for emotional support, then I’m going to overwhelm them. Or, yeah, it’s going to be too much, or I shouldn’t, I’m not, I’m not good enough to have that. Which can go against it. I think, you know, we’re talking a little bit about good therapists and what good therapists would do. You know, it’s often about, I often say to people, this isn’t, and this sounds really harsh, but this isn’t going to work if you look after me. I’m okay. And I want you to know I’m okay.

 

 And I’ll talk through that with you. But we need to work with you. Sometimes it can be a strategy to manage emotion and sometimes it can be just that they’re genuinely concerned because they’ve had backlash or they’ve not been seen in a way that emotionally supports what they need at that time and what parts of them are showing up.

 

[00:18:54] Marie: Yeah, I think it’s really tricky and I can’t remember who I was having this conversation with, but we were talking about a similar theme and for some people, encouraging them to be more vulnerable is great. It can be really well received in their friendship group. But if we’re doing work in therapy, for example, and we’re upskilling someone to have these conversations, and then they go to an environment that maybe isn’t ready for that change, or it catches them off guard, or their phrasing is awkward and clunky, that might get responded to in a way that gives them the message, this is not okay. So they might say, “Hey, I’ve been having these feelings or been thinking of this,” and their partner’s like, “I don’t have time for this today.” Or brushes it off or maybe misses the genuine vulnerability in that, and then it shuts the whole thing down.

 

[00:19:39] Michael: That’s a great point. I know I’ve had a dad come to me once and say, Michael, these sessions are great, but you don’t understand. When I go out of this room and I take a step out and I go and talk with my friends, I can’t talk to them like I talk to you here. So yeah, that’s really hard. It can be really hard when they enter environments where people aren’t as accepting, and if their friendship group isn’t as accepting, then it can be really tough because then they can feel alone again. And then shame again. So it’s like they’re trying to change but shame seems to occur at each point.

 

[00:20:13] Marie: Yeah, you’ve done a lot of work around shame. How did that come about? What got you started or drawn to this one emotion? 

 

[00:20:25] Michael: Yeah. Yeah, so my background is working with children and young people in residential care and in out-of-home care, so foster care, as well as sexual abuse and harmful sexual behaviour. What I started to witness is young people in horrendous amounts of shame. One, if they’d been harmed by sexual abuse, but two, if they’d engaged in harmful sexual behaviour. I remember this one time where there were some behaviours with a young person and he had a victim-survivor history and had engaged in problematic sexual behaviours. I remember just watching him feel this horrendous shame as I was trying to talk through some safety components to keep him and others safe. I remember just feeling this overwhelming feeling of shame and just, I kept thinking, how are we going to work through this? It’s so hard. It’s so hard for him. I could see it’s so hard. And even had me shut down and not wanting to talk about certain things. So that’s what got me really interested. And as I started to unpack shame, I started to realise I also had a shame story in my life and that that was becoming active in the room. So I started to get more interested and more interested in it. And then when I moved into different positions, I started to realise as a health profession that we’re not so good at talking about shame sometimes, some of us just want to run away from it. So I started to think, well, how can we help? How can we do this a bit better? And that’s when I released a resource on shame to work through the shame because it can be worked through and it can be something that’s really helpful and motivating if we’re able to use it in a certain way. 

 

[00:22:03] Marie: Yeah. And we’ll put a link to that resource in the notes for people to follow up with. What’s the thing we misunderstand about shame? 

 

[00:22:14] Michael: The way it presents. Often people will see it present as inward, everyone kind of coming down and crawling inside themselves. But shame can present in anger, denial, blaming people, justifying your behaviours, distracting, getting people distracted from talking about certain topics or certain things, self-harm, and using substances. It can all present in this way, but under it is actually shame because we feel so yucky about ourselves and so horrible about things that either are happening or that we’re doing and there’s a huge change of affect. We see it in the extreme cases of family violence, for example, where someone’s blaming someone for a behaviour that they’ve actually done. But under that, there’ll be shame because to admit to what’s happened is a very vulnerable position to be in. Even in couples work, when someone admits that they’ve stepped outside a relationship, that can be a really hard thing for someone to say that that’s happened because it goes against values that we hold as a collective, as a society. It can just be really extreme and it can move us in extreme ways and get us doing extreme things. So I think it’s just really misunderstood. 

 

[00:23:35] Marie: So it can have an impact on people’s willingness to seek help and on relationships. But I mean, it comes all of this, it really does come at a cost. So not seeking help, maybe having ruptures in relationships. What are some of the other things that if someone’s listening and they’re maybe identifying this a little bit, how can we get them thinking it’s worth the risk to try and address this shame? What’s waiting for them on the other side? What are some of the potential benefits of understanding this emotion and shifting the relationship you have with shame and help-seeking and connection?

 

[00:24:18] Michael: Yeah, there’s two things that we want to think about shame is, whose shame is this really? And that’s not to blame others or put it onto someone else, but if we haven’t done anything wrong, then we need to look at the ethics of shame and where that sits. And if we have done something wrong or we’ve wronged someone, then we can stand up and say, actually, I did that and take accountability. And that accountability doesn’t have to be scary. It can be such growth and we can work with ourselves and others through that and that we can accept that as humans we do things that we’re not proud of and that aren’t okay but that doesn’t define who we are and that actually by facing up to the harm that we may have caused, that that’s a strength because that takes a lot of strength to be able to see yourself and the behaviours in certain ways, so and to acknowledge that. And then you can be part of the healing, not only for yourself but for the person that you’ve harmed as well, or people. So it can be really invigorating experience, it’s a bit of a ride, a rollercoaster ride. But on the other side, it can be healing and real connected relationships. The relationships can be really deep and meaningful because we’re not hiding behind a preface of anything. We’re actually connecting with each other quite deeply.

 

[00:25:37] Marie: Yeah, that’s really lovely, so hopefully people can take some brave steps towards understanding this. Maybe as a parting bit, we talked earlier about how to find the right therapist and if you’re in a position where you can afford it and you have a choice, that’s really great. Some people, we know finance isn’t unlimited, there might only be one practitioner in their location or on their insurance or something like that. But in an ideal world, let’s say we have the choice and the funds, what sorts of things should someone look for when they’re trying to find a therapist? What are some of the advice that you would give maybe our male listeners on how to find the right person or what to look for?

 

[00:26:12] Michael: I definitely think it’s about the relationship between the therapist and the person seeking support, and whether they feel comfortable with that person. How do they make them feel? That’s the word, feel. I imagine people don’t like it, but how do you feel afterwards? Did they make you feel safe and comfortable even when talking about yucky things, or was it really hard? Just that safety element is going to be really important. Did they, for example, talk you through the process of what we’re going to do over the next couple of sessions, or even, if I’ve had children outside the waiting room and not really want to come into the room. So just talking through what’s in the room if they did want to enter, or if they don’t, then that’s okay. I think choices are important, giving choice around, you know, this might not be the right fit, but let’s talk about that and let’s help you get the right fit. So a therapist who de-centres themselves from the situation and really focuses on the other person around how they’re going to support them, even if this isn’t the right fit. It’s not a personal issue. It’s more about making sure there’s the right comfortability. Some people really like humour, and that’s also okay. Humour in the therapy room can be really helpful. I know we have to be funny as well. It can be really helpful and just guide things through at times. So, if that’s what you’re looking for, just being clear about what you would want in someone. If you could come up with a list, maybe two or three things that you could think about that might help. I often think with people, if your friend was trying to seek support, what kind of advice or suggestions might you give to them? As males, we are very good at giving advice and suggestions. What would you give to them and would that work for you and just thinking about that a bit more?

 

[00:28:00] Marie: It’s interesting you mentioned the personality and nothing about qualification. I think a lot of people will

 

 have a very limited understanding of the mental health professionals. They might always just go to a psychologist when even within psychology, there’s clinical, there’s counselling, there’s organisational, there’s general, like, there’s so many areas of that. There’s accredited mental health social workers like us, there’s mental health OTs, there’s clinical counsellors, family, there’s a whole bunch of things. But we know the best outcomes come from mental health, from that connection and feeling aligned with that. I like what you said about the discomfort. An analogy I give, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts, it’s like finding a personal trainer. The session might be tough and it might hurt after and they might push you a little bit. But you still want to feel like they’ve got your back, like they’re maybe motivating, that they know how far to push you and then pull you back a bit, but you’re not going to go into every session and just kind of lay around on the floor and be like, this is great. I’ve had like a really good PT session. Like it’s not always easy work. It can be really hard. It can be really grueling. You can sit in discomfort, but that’s different to the therapist. Like that connection, feeling uncomfortable. I think that, you know, you don’t want to feel judged or unsupported or belittled, unless that’s something, if you feel that in all your relationships, then maybe it’s a you thing. And that’s important to try and find a way to talk about that in therapy, but it’s finding this balance between managing the discomfort in a safe environment. 

 

[00:29:57] Michael: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think that’s a great way to put it by the personal trainer. I do love using analogies like personal trainers. Even going to therapy is like a personal trainer. If you want a six-pack, you know, you’re going to turn up to the personal trainer and go like, Hey, I want a six-pack. And then you do one session and you’re like, Oh, but I didn’t get a six-pack. You got to keep on going. And that’s the same with therapy. You got to keep on going to work at it. 

 

[00:30:21] Marie: Yeah. I mean, the amount of people that have that unfortunate expectation of in a few sessions, but I’m not better. And it’s like, well, if you go from zero fitness to wanting to run 5k, you’re not going to get there in just three runs or maybe even 10 runs. It could take, especially, you know, the lower your base fitness is the longer this might take. So if you’ve got emotions that are really suppressed and maybe really poor mental health and possibly substance misuse and other things happening, that’s going to add a level of complexity that takes a little longer. To unpack and understand and support a different path.

 

[00:31:00] Michael: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Totally agree 

 

[00:31:02] Marie: So for people listening, if we could give them one encouraging piece of advice or a takeaway, what would that be to our male listeners, young men, or dads out there listening?

 

[00:31:19] Michael: Do you have to be vulnerable? Be brave. Why do you have to be brave to be vulnerable? I suppose both are the same thing. But to then reach out for help can be vulnerable, can feel vulnerable, but it can also be brave, because we’re going in the face of, you know, standing against this kind of toxic thinking of what a man is and that we all need support. Otherwise, we’re a collective, we’re a society, we support each other. 

 

[00:31:50] Marie: Yeah, I love that. I think Brene Brown talks about this idea that you can’t be brave if there’s no risk because then it’s not brave.

 

[00:31:58] Michael: Yeah, that’s a really, it’s really great. So if you know the outcome,

 

[00:32:01] Marie: if there’s no risk of something going wrong or bad or uncomfortable, then it’s really not. It’s not brave. 

 

[00:32:08] Michael: Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s it. I’ve had some beautiful situations with guys with their children and really reconnecting them on an emotional level. We did some different types of therapies like EMDR and havening and it was healing for both of them. It was healing for the father and it was healing for the son as well because his anxiety about the father and his substance use, and he would be gone sometimes, but he was now on a journey of sobriety. And so we were doing this kind of storytelling and making sense of this kind of horrible situation. But what I could see is the father being very vulnerable and kind of showing the way for his child. 

 

[00:32:58] Marie: Gives permission for that to be okay. 

 

[00:33:01] Michael: Yeah. 

 

[00:33:01] Marie: Wonderful. For people listening, we’ll put links to how to find you, your shame resource in the show notes. Thanks so much for being a part of this series, the first series I’ve done on the podcast. So thanks so much. Talking about shame is a really nice way to wrap it up. 

 

[00:33:18] Michael: Always. Thanks for having me.