Most of us try to change by focusing on what we need to stop: stop overeating, stop drinking, stop scrolling, stop looking at pornography, stop reacting.

But there may be a better question:

What do you really want?

In this episode, Matt explores seven deeper rewards that can motivate meaningful change: sanctuary, authenticity, vibrancy, integrity, intimacy, spirituality, and freedom.

Drawing from Laurel Mellin’s Wired for Joy and Emotional Brain Training, Matt explains how joy creates an emotional environment where these rewards become more available—and how stress can interfere by activating unrealistic expectations, impulsive behavior, and the desire for immediate relief.

You’ll also learn a practical process for slowing down, regulating stress, identifying the truth beneath an unrealistic expectation, accepting the essential pain that comes with change, and choosing the deeper reward you actually want.

3:49 — What Do You Really Want?
The seven rewards that can give us a deeper motivation for change.

6:16 — Joy Is the Environment
Why sanctuary, authenticity, intimacy, freedom, and the other rewards become more available when we experience joy.

10:59 — What Stress Does to Us
A simple 1–5 stress check-in and why regulation needs to come before problem-solving.

17:45 — A Practical Framework for Change
Ground yourself, identify what you really want, challenge unrealistic expectations, accept essential pain, and choose the reward you want to cultivate.

Therapy Thoughts — Free Weekly Email
https://leecounselingks.com/resources

Wired for Joy by Laurel Mellin
https://a.co/d/08GFgWiR

Emotional Brain Training
https://www.ebtconnect.net/

Instead of only asking, “What behavior am I trying to stop?” try asking:

What reward am I reaching for?

Understanding why you struggle is an important step—but insight alone doesn't create change. In this episode, Matt shares a personal story about anxiety and explores the third stage of growth: conscious competence. You'll learn why healing requires both attention and intention, along with practical tools that can help you respond rather than simply react.

To receive the weekly Therapy Thoughts email that inspired this episode, visit https://leecounselingks.com/resources.

Time Markers:

• 0:43 – From insight to practice: What conscious competence looks like
• 5:33 – The three B's: Body, Beliefs, and Bonds
• 12:31 – Why healing is built through faithful practice, not perfect moments

This episode expands on Therapy Thoughts #25: The Hardest Part of Healing.

What happens when you finally realize something isn't working—but you don't yet know how to change it?

In this episode, Matt continues the conversation on Noel Burch's Four Stages of Competence by exploring the often most difficult stage of growth: conscious incompetence. Whether it's your marriage, family, leadership, or personal healing, awareness can feel painful because nothing has changed—except now you can see it.

Matt discusses why this stage is so emotionally difficult, how pride and shame keep us stuck, and why healing begins when we allow ourselves to be seen with both honesty and compassion. If you've ever felt discouraged because you're finally recognizing unhealthy patterns, this episode offers hope that awareness isn't the end of the journey—it's the beginning of real change.

In this episode:

3:30 – Why awareness can feel worse before it feels better
6:40 – The two barriers to healing: pride and shame
11:05 – Why awareness is not failure—it's the first step toward transformation

Subscribe to Therapy Thoughts:
https://leecounselingks.com/resources

If this episode encouraged you, consider following the podcast and sharing it with someone who may be in the middle of their own healing journey.

What if the patterns keeping you stuck are the very patterns you can’t see?

In this episode of the Lee Counseling Podcast, Matthew explores the Four Stages of Competence and how they can help us understand emotional growth, trauma, relationships, and even family or organizational systems.

Sometimes growth begins with an uncomfortable realization: I didn’t know what I didn’t know. But awareness isn’t failure—it’s often the beginning of change.

This episode expands on Therapy Thoughts, Matthew’s free weekly email. Subscribe at:

https://leecounselingks.com/resources#therapythoughts

Time Markers

00:43 — When you don’t know what you don’t know
Blind spots, church “specials,” and the patterns we can’t see.

03:13 — The Four Stages of Competence
A simple framework for understanding growth and change.

05:07 — Trauma, relationships, and learned patterns
Why unhealthy dynamics can feel completely normal.

07:33 — Awareness comes before change
Seeing the pattern may mean growth has already begun.

This episode is an expansion of Therapy Thoughts #023. If you'd like to receive my free weekly Therapy Thoughts email in your inbox, you can subscribe at www.leecounselingks.com/resources.

Why do we keep telling the same painful stories? And why do we sometimes find ourselves repeating the same unhealthy patterns?

In this episode of the Lee Counseling Podcast, I share a personal story from early in my marriage that reshaped the way I think about healing. We'll explore how our earliest relationships shape us, why behavior is often an attempt to manage pain rather than simply "bad choices," and how shame keeps us trapped in cycles of isolation.

Most importantly, we'll discover why healing doesn't happen when we simply try harder—it happens when our stories are heard, understood, and held in safe, loving relationships.

Time Markers

0:43 – Why We Keep Telling the Same Stories
4:23 – Looking Beneath the Behavior
6:04 – How Attachment Wounds Shape Our Lives
9:42 – How Healing Begins Through Safe Relationships

If this episode encouraged you, please subscribe, leave a rating and review, and share it with someone who may need the reminder that they don't have to carry their story alone.

What does it mean to live a life that is not just longer, but fuller?

In this episode, Matthew reflects on the phrase, "I want to add years to my life and life to my years," and explores how the quality of our relationships profoundly shapes the quality of our lives. Drawing from attachment theory and the work of Dr. Sue Johnson, he discusses why we long to be accessible, responsive, and emotionally engaged with one another—and how early attachment wounds can make that difficult.

Whether you struggle with conflict, fear of rejection, emotional distance, or simply want deeper relationships, this conversation offers hope. Healing begins when we understand our stories, regulate our emotions, and learn to stay connected even in difficult moments.

Because a life filled with secure love, meaningful connection, and emotional maturity doesn't just add years to your life—it adds life to your years.

00:15 — Years to My Life and Life to My Years
Matthew introduces the phrase that inspired this episode and shares why healthy relationships are central to living fully.

01:50 — The Three Ingredients of Secure Attachment
What it means to be accessible, responsive, and emotionally engaged—and why we long for these qualities in our most important relationships.

03:40 — Attachment Injuries and Enduring Wounds
How moments of disconnection become deeper wounds, shaping our fears of abandonment, rejection, and emotional deprivation.

08:30 — What Is This Conflict Really About?
Learning to look beneath arguments, understand your story, regulate your emotions, and cultivate relationships that truly add life to your years.

Memorable Quote from the Episode:
"Emotional maturity is learning to stay regulated under pressure because your true self is in the driver's seat, your wounds are receiving proper care, and love remains possible."

What happens inside of us doesn’t stay inside of us. In this episode of The Lee Counseling Podcast, Matthew explores how our inner formation eventually shapes the atmosphere around us—our marriages, families, friendships, churches, and communities. Drawing on Galatians 5, virtue formation, and interpersonal neurobiology, this conversation examines how pride, envy, greed, aggression, and anxiety quietly become relational patterns that impact everyone around us.

This episode also explores how the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, and self-control—creates emotionally safe, grounded, and joyful communities. Because spiritual formation is not about becoming polished religious people. It’s about becoming free enough to love.

⏱️ Time Markers

00:15 — Virtues, vices, and how the intrapersonal becomes interpersonal
10:14 — How fear, defensiveness, and anxiety shape relationships and communities
16:33 — Why joyful people create emotionally safe relationships
20:43 — Small practices, stable patterns, and how virtue slowly forms us

In this short bonus episode, Matthew shares a simple April workout challenge—and how it became a powerful picture of how virtue is actually formed.

Through small, daily reps that gradually increased over time, he discovered something many of us miss: lasting change doesn’t come from big moments, but from consistent, repeated choices. He also reflects on the role of community in sustaining growth and previews a future conversation with the friends who joined him in the challenge.

If you’ve ever felt stuck trying to change, this episode offers a grounded and hopeful reframe.

Why would a counseling podcast spend time talking about virtues and vices?

In this first episode of the Virtue Formation series, Matthew explores the surprising overlap between modern clinical psychology and ancient spiritual wisdom. Drawing from interpersonal neurobiology, habit science, and years of pastoral ministry, this episode introduces a hopeful vision of change: not behavior management, but formation.

Virtues are not about moral perfection or religious performance. They are stable patterns of character that make love more likely. And real transformation rarely happens through insight alone — it happens as grace creates safety, safety makes practice possible, and practice forms new habits of living.

This episode provides a compassionate framework for understanding both growth and struggle, introducing the idea that many vices are distorted attempts to meet legitimate needs such as safety, belonging, and connection.

If you’ve ever felt stuck between knowing what is good and struggling to live it consistently, this episode offers a grounded and hopeful path forward.

Time Markers

00:00 Why discuss virtues and vices on a counseling podcast?
07:08 What formation actually is — how habits shape character
18:30 Grace → Safety → Practice → Habit → Virtue → Love

Healthy friendships don’t just support us — they help shape us.

In Part 2 of Friends that Heal, Matthew and Jon explore what makes relationships truly transformative. Moving beyond vulnerability alone, this conversation highlights the importance of both encouragement and challenge — what therapists sometimes call attunement and containment. Together, they discuss why real growth often feels slow, why we sometimes feel like a “broken record” in areas where we want change, and how consistent friendships can create the safety needed for lasting transformation.

Through stories about parenting, personal growth, and the metaphor of hiking mountain switchbacks, this episode illustrates how meaningful change often happens gradually — even when it feels like we are going nowhere. When we experience relationships where someone is willing to “stay in the room,” we begin to develop a deeper sense of security that allows us to grow, take risks, and become more present with others.

This conversation offers practical insight into how healthy friendships can become a secure base for emotional, relational, and spiritual growth.

Time Markers

00:01 – A parenting moment that illustrates grace, truth, and growth
04:05 – Why healthy relationships require both support and challenge
09:13 – The “switchbacks” metaphor: why growth often feels slow
12:46 – What it means to “stay in the room” in lasting friendships