Healing Together with Matthew Winner

In today’s episode of the “Helping Families Be Happy” podcast, host Dr. Carla Marie Manly, a practicing Clinical Psychologist, Wellness Advocate, and Author based in Sonoma County, California talks with guest Matthew Winner, a Head Podcaster for A Kids Book Company where he leads the company in creating a podcast network dedicated to helping kids. They talk about his journey as a kid and what it takes in the circumstance to repair the harm that was caused to him

Episode Highlights

01:40 – Matthew says he is a great fan of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - CBT and loves that he can reflect and see where he was in his childhood and applies it to where he is now.
04:00 – Dr. Carla says that they are not blaming or shaming anyone, they are simply saying, there are things that you can do in your life to ensure yourself or your family are happier.
05:15 - The breakthrough for Matthew was a book that his therapist introduced to called Hold Me Tight by Dr. Sue Johnson.
07:00 - The beauty of attachment is that we can create secure attachment. We can create it no matter how old we are.
10:40 – Matthew mentions that wherever we are, in our life journey, it's liberating to say that the class was doing the best they could, just that they didn't know better. 
12:40 – Dr. Carla asks Matthew to explain ‘Restorative Justice’ to the listeners.
15:20 -  Restorative Justice work is to repair the harm so that we can look at the action that happened and say that it was wrong, but the individual is not a good or bad person. They are a person who committed this action while being aware of it.
17:10 – Dr. Carla tells Matthew that he mirrors what he said, he looks at the harm done, no blame, no shame but he addresses the person injured so that they can come from a place of empowerment and cure for the long-term.
19:20 – Matthew thinks that there's a lot of value there to healing together for them to say, that both the persons that were harmed and the person that is responsible for the harm can both be hurting and both need to heal.
21:24 - When Matthew takes that thing that he practices with Dr. Cara and applies it to talk to his parents or wife or kids or colleagues. He can start breaking down the fear or resistance around them because he has already got a notch on his belt from doing it in therapy.
22:39 - If we're practicing healthy loving skills in a safe family, then we can go out and practice them, at school, in friendships, or at work too.
25:30 – Matthew thinks that the reason why he has been working with children for so long is that it is incredibly humbling where he just learns and learns. They are exceptional at exposing his insecurities.
27:40 - A way we protect ourselves is by pushing others away, fighting, and by trying to make sure that no one causes us further harm.
29:40 – Matthew reveals that their kids’ podcasts have a podcast on emotions in coalition with young children and their grownups in part about destigmatizing therapy but also about allowing ourselves to feel big emotions.
31:00 - The work that they do in their Kids Co. is they say kids are ready and they make things for kids to talk about, says Matthew.
32:00 – Matthew mentions that the fact that he can see adults trying to protect him in his life, is what draws him to different hosts about the different podcasts that we have.
34:10 – Matthew suggests empowering children by giving them the language that they understand. If this is the word for that thing, then explain it to them, but don't call it something else. That is a piece of currency that they'll use to navigate the world, so deny them that tool.
35:55 – Dr. Carla does love all of the principles that Matthew has been bringing about on how to empower children and see them as unique individuals who are innately wise.
36:50 – Matthew says all the adults that maybe weren't there for him, how would they have ever known that 30 years later he would be an adult that could be here for him?
38:30 – Matthew wants to make sure that we all agree to learn together and to take on that position of learner.

Three Key Points

Matthew says that this indigenous practice of repairing harm, where harm was caused not seeking to punish but seeking to acknowledge that we are part of a community and as a community, we all need to be able to move forward together so being able to ask what it takes in this circumstance to repair the harm that was caused for Matthew. Between that repairing harm and working hard to see the best in people, to be able to love his parents and say, they were doing the best. They could and love them in a different way now and say he needs them to continue to do the best that they can and Matthew also will try to do the best that he can.
In the classroom community, they all become much more self-aware, as well as class aware that they are an ecosystem that they are all feeding off one another. Similarly, in the justice system, all of us in this community/society are just part of a fishbowl we're all part of a singular ecosystem that affects everything. We must recognize that we siblings can heal each other and also that it can go upward that my kids can heal me, making sure that I am communicating with them.
Dr. Carla says that when we look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, first and foremost comes Safety. We want to be safe, and we want to be loved because we are truly and deeply loved in the most beautiful sense of the word. We know we are safe because someone who truly loves us might make mistakes, but they won't purposefully harm us.
Let's talk about sexual abuse from the age of five because around two to five children by the age of 5 or 10 will have an experience with it and the number is huge. So instead, why wouldn’t we talk about this? Matthew states that he was a victim of sexual abuse, and it took him up to the age of 36 to be able to through therapy and notify authorities. It was past time, there was nothing that the state of Pennsylvania could do at that point.

Tweetable Quotes

“I think that I've really pushed up against this notion that our parents did the best they could.” - Matthew Winner
“We didn't have parents who knew anything about attachment. They didn't know how to create secure attachment.” - Dr. Carla Marie Manly
“I'm not judging any of the pupil’s choices, it's just realizing that sometimes in life we don't do our best.” - Dr. Carla Marie Manly
“You can't change other people; you can only change yourself.” - Matthew Winner
“You said one of my favorite words Fishbowl and another favorite, which is Ecosystem, right?” - Dr. Carla Marie Manly
“Children are exceptional in exposing our shortcomings, and our sensitivities.” - Dr. Carla Marie Manly
“We have a kids’ podcast about current events and about big topics like school shootings and racism and things like that and all of it.” - Matthew Winner
“I have come to understand that there's no way in my childhood that I wasn't communicating to my parents my needs.” - Matthew Winner
“Don't talk down to your children, talk up to your children. It is such a beautiful statement.” - Dr. Carla Marie Manly